Contratar bien es una movida gordísima. Porque, o te lleva mucho tiempo y sacrificas el delivery, o tienes que pagar muy por encima de mercado.

• Hemos ayudado a construir los equipo de compañías desde cero. Desde que valían 0€ hasta que han valido +100M. Hemos ayudado a lanzar productos en tiempo récord. Y hemos encontrado a esas personas que crean la cultura de una empresa.
• Muchas de esas compañías las conoces: Factorial, Cabify, Cobee, Sparta, Tinybird, Nextail, Zara, B100 (Abanca), Playtomic, Capchase…
• Todas ellas, en su momento, también fueron pequeñas y necesitaban escalar sus equipos.
• En Manfred hacemos procesos de selección buscando un buen encaje técnico con un mejor encaje cultural. Tratando bien a la gente, creando comunidad y cuidando la imagen de las empresas. Porque contratar no tiene por qué ser un dolor.
• Si quieres ahorrarte toda esa frustración y todo ese tiempo para dedicarte a hacer crecer tu compañía, podemos echarte una mano en getmanfred.com/empresas

Startup funding news 💸

• Barcelona-based TravelPerk made two relevant announcements last week: it raised a new credit facility of up to $135 million, and also announced the acquisition of AmTrav, a Chicago-based business travel booking and management platform, to accelerate US expansion, with the goal of the US market to become company’s top revenue-generating region. Avi Meir with more on the deal here
• Madrid-based Tinybird raised $30 million, led by Balderton. Tinybird allows devs and businesses to turn data into real-time APIs. According to Techrunch, the company is now valued at $240 million. More on the deal here
• Madrid-based Jobandtalent raised €18 million in convertible debt from its main investors to strengthen the balance sheet and has also obtained an extension of the maturity of the €354 million owed to Blackrock until the end of 2025
• Madrid-based startup FOSSA Systems has raised €6.3 million in a Series A round to expand its IoT satellite constellation for remote asset management in industrial use cases
• Madrid-based startup Sincrolab raised €1.7 million led by Clave Capital. Sincrolab specializes in AI-based digital therapies for the treatment of cognitive disorders, currently focusing on ADHD
• Madrid-based edtech Leemons expanded its recent funding round to €1.62 million. The new investors are Impact Angels Bolsa Social and Pinama
• Other rounds of funding:
• Unicaja invested in crypto startup Bit2Me
• Azitek
• InBiot
• Spaniards abroad:
• Canadian startup Waabi, founded by Spanish researcher Raquel Urtasun, has raised €186 million euros in a funding round led by Uber and Khosla Ventures. Waabi develops AI-driven autonomous trucks and aims to deploy the first vehicles next year

M&A activity 🎊

• HR company Redarbor, founded by David González Castro, who also previously founded Anuntis, acquired employment portals Catho and OCC from Australian group Seek for $85 million. The acquisition was funded by Vitruvian Partners, which holds a significant minority stake in Redarbor. The deal is expected to double Redarbor's business volume to €120 million this year
• The sale of the Spanish tech consultancy Babel is nearing completion, with CVC, Mubadala, and PAI Partners competing for a majority stake. Babel, valued at over €300 million, could see its valuation rise to €500 million due to a potential acquisition in Latin America that would double its EBITDA to over €40 million
• Indra is negotiating the sale of its payments subsidiary to Cinven for around 600 million euros. CVC Capital Partners is also interested in acquiring all of Indra's Minsait division, including its digital transformation and payment processing units
• Clientify, based in Almeria and with more than $5 million in ARR, acquired the Catalan technology company FindThatLead. More info here

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• At Kfund we announced that we surpassed €70 million in commitments for our sixth fund. The process was completed in a little over 5 months. With this new fund we’re strengthening our multi-stage fund family, allowing us to support projects from pre-seed to Series A with investments ranging from €100k to €10 million. More info here
• Hyperion Fund, led by former PP leader Pablo Casado and Ricardo Gómez-Acebo Botín, raised €53 million in its first closing to invest in aerospace, cybersecurity, AI, and defense companies. The fund targets €150 million
• Arcano predicts a progressive recovery in startup investments rather than a sudden rebound
• Back Fund closed its first investment vehicle, securing a portfolio that includes 16 startups and having invested a combined €1 million
• In a recent technology investor event in Málaga, Azahara Vera (Startup Wise Guys), Francisco Espinosa (Innventuur), and Juanjo Mostazo (K Fund) discussed the city's startup ecosystem. Article and video here

Startup news 💡

• Interview with Álvaro Martínez, CEO of Luzia. He says that the app has 50 million users and in terms of monetization, he says the following about ways in which they’re thinking of monetizing the userbase: "Imaginemos que un usuario quiere ir a Japón, le consulta a Luzia y esta le ofrece una serie de lugares y rutas interesantes. Pero vayamos más allá. Imaginemos que tenemos un acuerdo comercial con Booking, por ejemplo, para que a través de Luzia puedan ofertar habitaciones de hotel. Lo mismo con restaurantes. Sería parecido a las primeras páginas de Google, que están patrocinadas". Luzia has raised more than $30 million
• Interview with Cabify’s Juan de Antonio about car ownership, entrepreneurship and other topics
• Atrápalo, a major player in the leisure industry, reports a sluggish recovery post-pandemic. The company's CEO, Manuel Roca, indicates that while there is a gradual return to pre-COVID levels, the pace remains slow, particularly in segments like entertainment and tourism. Atrapalo did €230 million in 2023, +5% YoY, but far from the €340 million it did in 2018
• Profile of Sevilla-based CoverManager, which generates €25 million in ARR. Its restaurant management and booking software is used by more than 16,000 restaurants across seven countries
• Waynabox, a Barcelona-based company offering surprise travel packages, is expanding into France, Germany, and the Netherlands, expecting to double its revenue to €14 million this year
• LatAm open finance platform Belvo has partnered with Mexico’s Citibanamex to facilitate access to credit for individuals without a credit history or with difficulties in income verification. Co-founder Pablo Viguera tweeted about it here
• Spanish payments startup PaynoPain to expand to Portugal. The company processed almost €1 billion in payments last year
• Cafler, founded in Barcelona in 2021, has experienced significant growth in its revenues, multiplying them by ten in 2023 and achieving profitability. Cafler offers a marketplace that facilitates the process of the ITV (MOT) and coordinates services related to vehicles

Big company news 🏦

• Amazon has reached 25,000 full time employees in Spain, becoming one of the top ten private sector employers
• IAG Group, which includes Vueling, Iberia, and Level, will open an AI laboratory in Barcelona. The facility, which will employ up to 150 people, will complement the existing one in London
• Santander has removed messaging software, including WhatsApp, from smartphones issued to its investment bankers in Spain. This move comes as banks tighten control over staff communications
• BBVA plans to launch a digital consumer bank in Germany to compete with JPMorgan. Led by Javier Lipuzcoa, the head of BBVA's digital bank in Italy, the bank is conducting a feasibility study and assembling a team for the new unit
• Amadeus anticipates increasing its revenues by 9% to 12.5% due to the strong performance across its business sectors. The company's positive outlook is driven by the recovery in travel demand and robust growth in its hospitality, payments, and airport IT services divisions
• Global Exchange, the 2nd largest currency exchange company in the world, has opened a technological center in Salamanca that will host 200 experts in artificial intelligence, cloud, and big data

Interesting reads 🤓

• El Referente published its “Informe empresas tech e innovadoras 2024”. More highlights here and here
• Jorge Galindo (47Degrees) published “Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest.” The post got to the frontpage of Hacker News
• Carlos Arboleya (Vivra) published a guide on how to enter the startup/VC world if you have no experience

Podcasts 🎧

• Itnig interviewed David Masó, co-founder of PromoFarma
• SeedRocket interviewed Enrique Garcia, co-founder of TaxDown
• Product Leaders interviewed Pedro Mejuto, Vice President & General Manager of Bumble Studio
• El Confidencial interviewed Iñaki Arrola (Kfund)
• Real Use Cases of Blockchain interviewed Fernando Terres, co-founder and CEO of DolarApp