Are you looking to stay ahead of the curve for Technology and Investment trends in 2024?

Join AWS at 4YFN next week in Barcelona and gain exclusive insights from how to harness emerging tech like GenAI to boost productivity and scale to expert insights on how to secure funding in 2024.

Join the AWS Partner program (register here for a priority spot! ) or the AWS theater sessions, and don’t miss the chance to hear from top founders and investors (from Iomed, Wayra, Soy LuzIA, Factorial, Stratio, Inveready, Samaipata, and many others!).

See you in Barcelona!

Startup funding news 💸

• In 2023, health startups and scaleups in Catalonia reached a total investment of €220m, maintaining their annual investment trend despite the challenging market context. This achievement marked the fourth consecutive year surpassing €200m in investment
• Madrid-based LUDA Partners raised €12m from Moira Capital Partners to further interconnect the digital presence of pharmacies. More info here
• Madrid-based Zylon raised €3.2m, led by Felicis Ventures. LifeX Ventures also invested. The company offers businesses the capability to build a fully private gen AI workspace. The founders of Zylon are also the creators of PrivateGPT, an open-source project to allow people to use generative AI without any tracking
• Other rounds of funding: Zetrack, habitacion.com

M&A activity 🎊

• EQT is planning a restricted auction for the sale of Idealista, targeting a valuation between €2b and €3b. EQT acquired a majority stake in idealista in 2020 that valued the real estate company at €1.3b. In 2022, idealista reached sales of €218m and EBITDA of €79m. More info on the evolution of idealista here

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Seaya Andromeda led an €8.5m round in Danish energy company Aegir Insights. Aegir provides decision-making software, data, and intelligence for the offshore wind sector
• We Venture Capital invested €5m in total in biotech companies Capitainer and Zetta Genomics
• Google selected Spanish startup Zepo, specialized in AI for cybersecurity, for its Google For Startups program. Zepo aims to reach one million users this year, focusing on mitigating human-related cybersecurity risks with their AI-powered, comprehensive service
• Angels Capital invested in Zubi Group's new fund, Zubi Capital Diversity Catalyst FCRE, Spain's first venture capital focused on inclusion and diversity
• BeAble Capital and BBVA Research presented a report on investment in Deep Science technologies, highlighting the need for specialized Science Equity investment in disruptive technologies like advanced materials and biotechnology. The report is available here

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
• Future-proof your startup at 4YFN Barcelona with AWS! We’ll have a packed agenda at our AWS theater and at the AWS Partner Program, covering emerging technologies like GenAI and Machine Learning, investment trends, and ready-to-use knowledge to apply today and accelerate your startup’s growth. Make sure to pass by stand C64 to join our sessions or have a coffee with the AWS Startups team. See you there!
• ​Glovo seems to be on a very tight financial position. The company cited a €210m loss and restricted access to credit in Spain as grounds for deferring a €2m fine's payment imposed by Spanish authorities. Reacting to this news, the CEO of Just Eat published the following tweet: “The second time this month our competitor claims to go bankrupt if they have to pay the fines they incur for not having paid taxes and social security for years 🙃 Time for the Spanish courts to collect the Spanish taxpayers’ money. #competenciadesleal”. Oscar Pierre, CEO of Glovo, appeared last week in a Sifted podcast to talk about the gig economy. He said “If Glovo had been acquired by any other large delivery company, I’d be out“
• The stock of Lleidanet rose by more than 80% in one single day, after announcing that it had secured a contract with Banco Santander, worth €1.9m over three years. Lleidanet specializes in SMS and electronic signature certification
• Sifted sat down with HolaLuz’s CEO Carlota Pi to talk about the company’s evolution in recent times, which has not been as positive as initially expected due to market and financial circumstances. The company faced regulatory challenges and a revenue drop in the last year, despite expectations of a boom for Spanish solar companies
• BusUp, a startup that specializes in corporate mobility program management, achieved revenue of €30m in 2023, +75% YoY
• Clidrive, a company that specializes in vehicle financing co-founded by Pablo Fernandez, achieved €10.6m in revenue in its first year with positive EBITDA. The company aims to increase financial inclusion by using vehicles as collateral, offering a solution to those traditionally excluded from financing. Pablo Fernandez also wrote about the news here
• Profile of Almeria-based language learning app Twenix. The company closed 2023 with €7.2m in sales (+120% YoY) and counts with more than 800 companies as clients
• RawData’s agriculture platform doubled its revenue in 2023, reaching €700k. The company expects to surpass €1.5m in revenue in 2024
• Crescenta launched its first investment funds, Crescenta Private Equity Buyouts Top Performers I (link ) and Crescenta Private Equity Growth Top Performers I (link ), targeting retail and professional investors with a minimum commitment of €10,000. Crescenta is a Kfund portfolio company
• Energy startup Lumio, in collaboration with automaker Volvo, launched Spain's first virtual energy community, aiming to halve its carbon footprint by 2025
• Profile of Dive, a Madrid-based startup specializing in computer vision and generative AI technologies, currently negotiating another investment round to globalize its solutions
• Revolut has doubled its customer base in Spain to over 2.5 million users in just one year, propelled by the introduction of a Spanish IBAN and the launch of the Flexible Account linked to money market funds, which alone attracted over €580m in deposits
• N26 will allow customers to buy crypto on the app
• Brazilian company Blip, which specializes in conversational AI, chatbots, and smart contact solutions, has positioned Spain as the core of its European expansion. This strategic move follows Blip's acquisition of Spanish startup GUS in late 2023
• DevTools company HashiCorp announced the opening of its first office in Spain, in Madrid
• Startup profiles:
• Harbiz: fitness vertical SaaS
• 15 Spanish eHealth startups to watch in 2024 (link )

Big company news 🏦

• BBVA has increased its stake in the British neobank Atom Bank to nearly 50% following the latest funding round, with the bank now valued at over €400m. Atom reported its first profit of €22m after years of losses​
• Garrigues becomes the first Spanish law firm with its own generative AI model, developed with the participation of experts and a team of over 150 professionals and lawyers
• Repsol acquired a majority stake in Portuguese app Miio to increase its presence in the EV space
• The National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has imposed the first fine on a cryptocurrency platform, Miolo Desarrollos, for not informing about the risks in its advertising
• Telefónica announced a partnership with Chainlink to provide security against "SIM Swap" attacks in blockchain transactions

Interesting reads 🤓

• Joaquin Cuenca, co-founder of Freepik, wrote “A Roadmap For US Market Entry In Tough Times“
• Javi Santana, co-founder of Tinybird, wrote “How to scale a real-time data platform“
• Aitor Garcia, CTO at Devengo, wrote “Any-stack developers and learning Ruby at Devengo”, on the topic of Devengo’s selection process for engineering talent
• Manel Pujol, co-founder of energy startup Samara, wrote “El autoconsumo por dentro: así instalan los españoles”
• Ignacio Arriaga, co-founder of Acumbamail, published a Twitter thread and newsletter post on Indiehackers

Podcasts 🎧

• Kfund interviewed Sam Lown (Invopop) and Fernando Cabello (Devengo)
• Product Hackers interviewed Eric Sánchez, CEO and co-founder of Reental
• Itnig interviewed the founders of Waynabox
• SeedRocket interviewed Toni Segarra