Unlock the power of conversational AI with Google’s Startup School: Gen AI.

Generative AI has the potential to transform the way we work, create, and interact with the world around us. If you're ready to harness the power of this revolutionary technology, this 8-session course by Google for Startups and Google Cloud is the perfect place to start.

Our experts equip you with the knowledge and skills you need to understand the latest gen AI tools and solutions, including Gemini, to help you accelerate your business’ growth. Learn how to build AI agents that can streamline and optimize tasks, saving your startup valuable time and money.

Summer fun starts here! Dive into our on-demand sessions now !

Startup funding news 💸

• Barcelona-based travel startup Exoticca raised €60M in a founding round led by Quadrille Capital. The company expects to close 2024 with €300M in sales, a 50% YoY increase, and also said that 20% of its sales come from B2B and that 75% of all sales originated in the US and Canada. Exoticca is a Kfund portfolio company. More info here
• Barcelona-based coliving and proptech Enso raised €8.2M from US fund XY Booster. The company did €3.2M in sales in 2023
• Barcelona-based fintech Payflow raised €6M, led by Thomson Reuters Ventures. Payflow offers flexible payment options to companies and its employees, with the main product being salary advancements. It currently has €4M in ARR
• Granada-based FitnessKPI raised €1M, led by Angels. FitnessKPI has built a BI tool for gyms
• Tarragona-based supplements brand Jelly Pills raised €1M, led by RHOMBUS
• Other rounds of funding:
• inBiot: €500k, monitoring and improving of indoor air quality
• Solved: €300k, SaaS for incident management at manufacturing plants

M&A activity 🎊

• Jacobs Holding, a Swiss investment fund, acquired Spanish educational institution ILERNA for more than €400M. ILERNA specializes in FP (formación profesional) courses, offering both online and in-person programs, and it was majority owned by another fund, IK Partners. In 2022 it did €400M in sales and €20M in EBITDA
• Hiya, a US based voice and call protection company acquired Spanish startup Loccus, that specializes in detection of AI-generated voices in real-time
• This one came out of nowhere: Tech consulting firm Sngular announced the acquisition of Emprendedores, the business and startup news site and magazine, founded in 1997. Jose Luis Vallejo, founder of Sngular, explained the reasoning behind the deal here
• Europe-based, long-term investor and growth accelerator Everfield acquired Gstock, a Spanish provider of SaaS solutions for stock and warehouse management of food and beverages in the hospitality, restaurants, and catering industry

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• According to El Español, Mundi Ventures has already raised around €550M for its new €1B fund. As announced a few weeks ago, €300M will come from the EIF (European Investment fund)
• Institut Català de Finances (ICF) launched Venture Tech III, a fund to invest €40M in Catalan startups
• Spanish investors active abroad:
• - Iris Ventures led a €20M round in Swedish startup Maurten, specialist in sports nutrition
• - Seaya led a €8.2M round in UK freelancing platform Passionfruit. More on the investment here
• - DraperB1 and Elewit, the investment arm of Redeia, participated in the $12M round of energy management company Splight

Startup news 💡

• The founders of adtech company Adsmurai repurchased a stake owned by Entravision for €15M, regaining control of the company
• Spotahome grew revenues by 27% in 2023, to €12M, and cut losses by 60%, to €4.3M
• Stewart Masters, CPO of healthy restaurant chain Honest Greens, explained in a LinkedIn post why they’ve decided to build in-house most of the tech they use, instead of relying on existing software solutions. The reasons: Extreme customization, Flexibility & speed and Data
• https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F89d74b89-021f-41cb-88f3-b609b741b609_1086x1186.png
• Pau Ramon, founder of Fika (and previously CTO and co-founder of Factorial) published two articles on the recently launched product:
• Building fika: Constraints and Architecture
• Fear of over-engineering has killed engineering altogether
• Interview with the Managing director of ride sharing company Bolt in Spain. He says that Spain is a key market for the company, which is active in 7 cities and 7 airports. I’ve used Bolt quite a bit lately in Madrid, especially traveling to and from the airport, and it’s been usually the cheaper option compared to Uber and Cabify

Big company news 🏦

• The European Commission is investigating whether Glovo and Delivery Hero have engaged in cartel-like behavior in the food delivery sector. The probe is focused on potential anti-competitive practices, such as collusion on pricing and market sharing
• The National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) has opened a disciplinary proceeding against Apple regarding potential anti-competitive practices related to its App Store. The investigation focuses on whether Apple imposes unfair conditions on app developers, potentially restricting competition and innovation
• Telefónica Brasil acquired cloud company IPNet for up to €38M

Interesting reads 🤓

• Alberto Romeu, backend dev at Tinybird, wrote “Consejos para sobrevivir a una startup”
• Ignacio Arriaga (Acumbamail) wrote “Hablemos de negocios milenarios”
• Views newsletter published an interview with Pepe Agell, co-founder of Chartboost (raised from Sequoia, acquired by Zynga) and now investor at Pear VC
• Javier Escribano (formerly of Ontruck, now Escuela Escribano) wrote “Necesitamos más y mejores Engineering Managers”
• Sifted wrote about digital nomads in Spain, in the context of recent protests in Barcelona and other cities: “Digital nomads in Spain 'bullied' as anti-tourism sentiment swells - so what's the solution?”

Podcasts 🎧

• Itnig interviewed Oriol Fuertes, founder of Qida
• SeedRocket interviewed Jose Cabiedes, to talk about Search Funds
• Product Hackers interviewed Diego Bestard, founder of Urbanitae
• Kfund interviewed Carlos Riquelme of Microsoft AI