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10 years of Dealflow., 10 years of Dealflow.

December 30, 2024 • Issue #447

Solicita tu plaza ya a la 12ª edición "11 Leyes del cambio en tu estrategia de marketing digital: No dependas solo de Google y Meta"

La formación es eminentemente práctica y os adentrará en lo último del marketing digital, nuevos enfoques y metodologías, pero sobre todo en mostraros que diversificar tus canales digitales no solo es necesario sino sano.

Se realizará en varias ciudades de España de manera presencial y gratuita. ¡Infórmate del contenido, testimonios, ponentes y localización ahora!

Startup funding news 💸

  • Barcelona-based startups raised €1.4B in 2024, almost 2X compared to 2023. This is according to Expansion. Here’s a list of the top funding rounds. The list hast a mix of equity, debt and even capital raising activity from public companies (Wallbox)…
  • Continuing with overview of local ecosystems and Spanish cities, here’s a summary of the main news coming out of Valencia’s startup ecosystem in 2024

M&A activity 🎊

  • List of some of the more notable exits in Spain in the last 5 years

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

  • CriteriaCaixa plans to invest €100M in Kembara Fund I, a €1B VC fund managed by Mundi Ventures. The fund has also received support in the form of €350M from the European Investment Fund and €300M from Spain’s Sepi Digital
  • AXIS, the VC arm of Spain’s Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO), launched the 17th call for Fond-ICO Global, aiming to channel €900 million into PE and VC funds
  • Zubi Group is preparing a healthcare investment fund, aiming to launch in 2025 pending CNMV approval
  • Samaipata invested over €20M in European startups in 2024. It led 4 funding rounds, including €3M for Imperia (supply chain platform) and €6M for Dcycle (sustainability data SaaS). The firm anticipates progressive recovery in 2025, driven by AI and policy focus on tech
  • Profile of David Broncano’s tech investment activity. He’s made deals directly (Heura Foods) and also invested as an LP in Enzo Ventures

Startup news 💡

  • Profile of Balance Phone, a Barcelona-based startup that has developed a mobile device designed to provide a safer digital experience for children by eliminating addictive content. In collaboration with Samsung, the Balance Phone is currently available on the Samsung A16 5G model. The device restricts access to social media, games, streaming platforms, and sites related to pornography and gambling, allowing only essential apps Profile of Barkibu, the pet health startup co-led by Pablo Pazos and Alvaro Gutierrez. Pablo shares in the interview that they’ll close the year with 65k customers and €24M in sales. Barkibu is a Kfund portfolio co Profile of Vivla, a startup that offers a fractional ownership model for luxury vacation homes, allowing customers to buy shares (from 12.5% to 50%) for €75k to €290k per share Interview with Pablo Fernandez, co-founder of Clicars, Clidrive (among many companies) and also an active investor. He said that he invested €4M of his personal money to start Clidrive and that the company generated €10.6 million in revenue within its first year Jorge Lana, co-founder of Modulor Ventures, published the financials of the various companies that are part of the holding
  • Ariel Camus, co-founder of companies such as TouristEye (Lonely Planet) or Microverse (Edtech), announced the launch of Leap in Jan 2025, a new company that aims to be “a new version of our English school for software engineers” Jorge Serna, CPTO at Securitize, predicts that tokenized funds will surpass traditional funds in volume by 2027 Christopher Gehlen, CEO of Neutroon, reflects on the company’s achievements in 2024 and outlines plans for 2025. Neutroon is based in Barcelona and has developed a cloud-based management and orchestration platform designed to simplify the deployment and operation of private wireless networks, including LTE, 5G, and Wi-Fi

Big company news 🏦

  • Colombian energy utility Interconexión Eléctrica (Grupo ISA) has launched Inndigo, a corporate VC arm aiming to invest up to $130M by 2030 in energy transition startups. Inndigo is supported by Wayra along with Telefónica Movistar Group’s open innovation group and corporate fund
  • Uber Eats faces €136M in legal and fiscal contingencies in Spain, primarily due to disputes over classifying its couriers as self-employed. This includes €104M in potential fines and €20M in unpaid Social Security contributions
  • The Spanish financial regulator CNMV has opened a sanctioning process against Twitter (now X) for allegedly allowing paid ads from unauthorized financial entities
  • How Decathlon is transforming its business in Spain by focusing on circular economy initiatives, including second-hand sales, rentals, and in-store repair services. The company has dedicated spaces in 70 large-format stores for these activities and partnered with Wallapop to expand online sales

Interesting reads 🤓

  • Article about the AESIA, the Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence: “España no es en absoluto puntera en IA, pero ya tenemos una agencia regulatoria con 80 empleados. No sabemos muy bien qué van a regular”. Javilop (Magnific, Freepik) published a series of tweets on the story
  • Miguel Arias (Kfund) published “Reflexiones sobre Inteligencia Artificial para cerrar el año“
  • Simon Muñoz published “Retrospectiva de 2024: El año de la Inteligencia Artificial Generativa“
  • Jose Ramon Perez Agüera, CTO of Mercadona Tech, published “Lecciones de productos físicos para profesionales de producto digital“

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