Google Cloud Summit Madrid 2025 is just around the corner! Join us on May 22 for Spain’s biggest cloud event and discover the latest innovations in AI, cloud security, app modernization, infrastructure optimization, and data & analytics.

From hands-on sessions with Vertex AI to keynotes on BigQuery, Looker, and securing digital environments, this is your chance to connect with industry leaders, get inspired, and stay ahead of the curve.

👉 Check out the agenda and register now — don’t miss the cloud event of the year!

Startup funding news 💸

• Multiverse Computing, the Basque quantum software startup, is preparing a €150M capital raise. Backed by the Spanish government’s SETT (formerly SEPI) and investors like Columbus VP and Quantonation, the company posted €13M in 2024 revenue and €7M in losses
• San Francisco-based Stack AI, co-founded by Spanish entrepreneurs, raised a $16M Series A from Lobby VC, LifeX Ventures, Guillermo Rauch (CEO of Vercel), and Bob Van Luijt (CEO of Weaviate), as well as previous investors YC, Gradient (Google), etc. The startup builds low-code tools for creating AI agents adapted to business needs
• Luzia, the Spanish AI assistant startup, raised $13.5M in a round led by Prosus Ventures, with participation from Khosla Ventures, A* Capital and Monashees. Luzia has raised around $49M to date. The company, known for its WhatsApp-based AI assistant, will use the funds to expand across LATAM. Prosus also announced the deal
• Seaya Andromeda acquired a 30–40% stake in Cuimo, a B2B marketplace for refurbished motorcycles, through a mix of secondary share purchase and a capital increase. The €8M deal included continued backing from existing investors like Encomenda and Hugo Arévalo. Cuimo, founded in Madrid, reached €18M in annual revenue and is now the third-largest player in Spain’s second-hand motorbike market
• Niche Mobility, a startup developing modular and lightweight EV platforms, raised €1.6M in a round led by Archipelago Next, alongside Clave Capital and other investors
• Other rounds of funding:
• SolarYou, a startup offering solar self-consumption solutions, closed a €450k round led by Faraday Venture Partners
• Medical Devicine raised €250k to advance the development and commercialization of its portable emergency medical device that monitors vital signs in real-time

M&A activity 🎊

• US-based Novanta, listed on NASDAQ, acquired Catalan startup Keonn, a specialist in RFID technology used by clients like Zara and Decathlon. Novanta will pay €60M upfront and an additional €20M as part of an earnout

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• The CDTI Innovación launched the 2025 NEOTEC call with €20M in grants for deeptech and science-based startups
• Eva Gervás, heir to the Mahou family fortune, launched Canetonin Investment, a private investment vehicle that will likely take a significant stake in Kibo Ventures Fund IV, the €150M deeptech fund focused on AI, robotics, and climate tech. More here
• A team of ex-executives from El Corte Inglés, Booking, Expedia, and Google secured CNMV approval for Travel Tech 2 (TT2) Smart Investments, a new €50M VC fund focused on traveltech
• Semente Capital, a new business angel network focused on Galicia, launched with the goal of boosting early-stage investment in the region. Backed by 25 founding investors, the group aims to support Galician startups with funding, mentorship, and connections

Startup news 💡

• New startups and products:
• Loiale launched as an AI-powered Customer Experience Manager (CXM), built to automate loyalty and retention strategies for D2C, retail, and hospitality brands
• Tinybird launched Explorations, a new feature that lets users visualize and analyze real-time data directly from their data sources without needing dashboards or BI tools
• Pablo Tonutti, formerly at Google, launched JobWinner - an AI-powered platform that helps you apply to jobs and prepare for interviews more efficiently
• Cecabank and Bit2Me launched a turnkey crypto trading and custody solution for traditional banks, ahead of the EU’s MiCA regulation rollout. The platform offers real-time access to crypto markets, high-security cold wallets, and customizable trading infrastructure
• Startup financials:
• Wallbox warned it will remain unprofitable in the short to medium term and may require new funding to support operations and debt obligations. Wallbox’s current market cap (€85M-ish) is less than the amount it has raised in recent quarters (€125M)
• Seedtag, the Madrid-based contextual advertising startup, aims to surpass €400M in revenue in 2025 and approach unicorn valuation. Backed by Advent (60.5%) and other funds like Adara, Oakley, and Acurio, the company now generates nearly 50% of its sales in the U.S., where it’s rapidly scaled since 2022. With €50–100M in projected EBITDA, Seedtag continues combining organic and inorganic growth (M&A) and positions itself as a privacy-first adtech player ahead of Chrome’s cookie phaseout
• Freepik reinforced its multimodal AI strategy to compete with OpenAI, Adobe, and Midjourney, as it surpasses €100M in annual revenue and expands into video and enterprise services. Backed by EQT (52%), the Málaga-based company is betting on user experience, integration of third-party models, and the U.S. market. More on Freepik’s enterprise offering here
• Startup profiles:
• Sycai Medical, a Barcelona-based healthtech startup, uses AI to help radiologists detect and monitor pancreatic cysts that could turn cancerous. Its flagship tool, Sycai Medical Assistant, improves early diagnosis by analyzing CT scans with deep learning
• Other news:
• Wallapop restructured its Italian operations to cut costs and move closer to profitability, confirming an “organizational update” that included layoffs affecting around 20 employees. While Italy and Portugal account for just 7% of revenue, Spain remains its core market.
• The Spanish Ministry of Labour opened an investigation into Glovo over the alleged illegal transfer of delivery riders to external subcontractors, a practice that may violate labor regulations

Big company news 🏦

• Telefónica is preparing a workforce reduction of up to 5,000 employees as part of CEO Marc Murtra’s new efficiency plan
• Amadeus grew its Q1 2025 net profit by 12% to €363M. It also completed the acquisition of Forward Data, a travel intelligence firm, for €15.3M
• Merlin Properties will invest €2.4B over the next four years to expand its data center business
• Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that banks must cover losses suffered by customers due to digital fraud, including SIM swapping and phishing, even if standard security protocols were followed
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Interesting reads 🤓

• The Ministry of Industry awarded €53.2M to 37 microelectronics projects as part of the PERTE Chip initiative. The funds aim to boost Spain’s semiconductor capabilities through R&D and infrastructure development. Recipients include Ikerlan, CIDETEC, CSIC, Imasenic, Innophysics, and Openchip, covering both public research centers and startups working on chip design, packaging, and quantum tech
• El Mundo analyzes the paradox of Spain’s startup ecosystem: despite an unprecedented influx of public funding—via programs like NextTech, CDTI, Fondico or FOCO—private capital, especially from institutional investors like pension funds, remains largely absent
• Samuel Gil (JME) wrote “La evolución del Venture Capital”
• Saleiva (Kfund, Tinybird) wrote “Thriving in your first job”
• Jorge Sancha (Tinybird) wrote “Cursor is my new Google Docs: I use Cursor for writing and pretty much everything I do at work.”
• Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel, criticized LaLiga for blocking a Vercel CDN IP in Spain without using a dedicated reporting channel the company set up. This is terriblle

Podcasts 🎧

• Alvaro Fontela
• Javi Lopez
• Jesus Martinez