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Startup funding news 💸

• It’s the beginning of the year and we have the first numbers on the performance of the Spanish tech industry, using funding activity as a proxy. The three main sources for this type of data (El Referente, Bankinter and Dealroom ) all claim that 2024 was a better year than 2023 in terms of total investment volume (between €2B and €3B) and that the increase compared to 2019 is significant. The number of rounds closed (and announced) dropped for the 2nd consecutive year. A quick analysis of the type of rounds completed point to a significant increase in debt financing and also to an increase in late stage activity (rounds of more than €50M), while pre-seed to Series A rounds dropped
• https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3ee79358-adf1-41ed-b158-5fcefc37955b_1390x1018.png
• Dealroom data - Link
• On the topic of seeing an increase of debt rounds…. Madrid-based Clikalia, the proptech platform for home buying and selling, has secured a €400M syndicated loan from Macquarie, replacing a similar line from Deutsche Bank. The move comes as Clikalia seeks to reduce interest rates. Clikalia handles over 1,500 property transactions annually and aims to achieve its first net profit in 2024. In recent months we’ve also seen other Spanish startups refinance their loans
• Other rounds of funding:
• Phoenix Foods: €347k, insect farming

M&A activity 🎊

• The Institut Català de Finances (ICF) has announced a record budget of €1.326B for 2025, with €71M allocated specifically for venture capital initiatives
• Enzo Ventures’ founding partner, Edgar Vicente, reflects on the firm’s journey in VC. He shares how Enzo Ventures, founded by two individuals in their 20s, successfully launched a VC fund from scratch. Despite challenges, they closed their first fund at over €10 million, investing in 21 companies across six geographies and are now gearing up for Fund II

Startup news 💡

• Indexa Capital celebrated its 9th anniversary, reporting significant growth over the past year. The company now manages over €3B in assets, this growth represents a 53% growth, with the client base expanding to more than 93,000 investors. In line with its annual tradition, Indexa Capital announced a reduction in management fees, effective January 1, 2025
• Freshly Cosmetics, the Catalan natural cosmetics company, is undergoing a leadership change as co-founder Mireia Trepat steps down from her executive role. She wrote about the decision here. The company recently announced a workforce reduction of 18% due to declining online sales, affecting 52 employees at its Reus facility
• Destinia, the Spanish online travel agency, plans to expand into Turkey to boost its sales beyond €250M after falling short of this goal in 2024. The company cited economic challenges in Europe and adverse geopolitical factors, including the war in Ukraine, as reasons for missing the target
• PJ Lobster, a Catalan eyewear company founded in 2018, has increased its sales by 60% in 2024, reaching €3M and selling over 30,000 items. This growth is attributed to their ‘Circular Vision Program,’ an optical subscription service that allows unlimited eyewear changes to match personal style and life moments. The service accounts for 30% of the company’s monthly revenue
• Holaluz has called a shareholder meeting for February 4 to finalize a settlement with key stakeholders Axon Partners and Geroa Pentsioak. The dispute arose after the two firms opposed Holaluz’s 2023 financial accounts, leading to their representatives’ removal from the board and a legal action for damages
• Garanti, the Turkish subsidiary of BBVA, has partnered with Spanish platform Bit2Me to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions for its clients
• Italian tech firm Var Group is expanding aggressively into Spain ’s cybersecurity market with the goal of becoming a regional leader. The company recently acquired Wise Security and Boot Systems, along with Andorra-based LBS Serveis and Awesome. Var Group’s Spanish operations are set to generate €22M in 2024 and aim to double their workforce to 500 by 2026

Big company news 🏦

• Santander has earned $25M from its licensing agreement with Google for the Gravity software, designed to simplify cloud migration. Payments include $7.5M for initial collaboration, $7.5M for development and testing, $5M for a successful client migration, and $5M for extending exclusivity until 2027.

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Interesting reads 🤓

• Miguel Carranza (RevenueCat) published his annual post on how his role as CTO has evolved: “My role as a founder CTO: Year Seven”
• Pablo Fernandez (Clicars, Clidrive, among many other companies) published a post on what he believes are the “same 5 problems” a lot of founders make, based on his experience “investing in over 100 startups over the last ten years (many of which are YC backed)”
• Victoriano Izquierdo, co-founder of Graphext, published Calmdigest, a side project that “converts any web URL into an ePub and sends it directly to your Kindle”
• David Alvarez (Banktrack) published a post on the “five most important lessons the market has taught Banktrack in 2024”
• RevenueCat published “Life as a Developer Support Engineer at RevenueCat: Stories from the Team”, featuring Spaniard Joan Cardona and other employees2