SocialPoint acquired for up to $278 million. BlaBlaCar wins legal battle in Spain.
June 22, 2019 • Issue #52
Startup funding news
- Scytl raised €12 million at a lower valuation than two years ago
- Farming marketplace Farmidable raised €90,000
Startup exits
- Take Two acquired Barcelona-based mobile gaming studio SocialPoint for up to $276 million. El Español has a good story of the mobile gaming empire created by Horacio Martos and Andrés Bou
- British company HomeServe acquired 70% of Habitissimo for more than €20 million
- MasMovil acquired MVNO LlamaYa for €29 million
Investor & accelerator news
- Conector launched a new accelerator program in partnership with Galician bank Abanca
- Tetuan Valley and Lisbon-based Beta-i announced a new partnership
Startup news
- El Confidencial profiled Reclamador and Indemnizame
- The ups and downs of Comunio, a German success that found in Spain its biggest market
- Ticketbis has finally changed its name to StubHub, following its 2016 acquisition by eBay
- Interview with Nina Alastruey, co-founder of Eelp
- David Bonilla has joined Comalatech as CEO
- Infinito.io is a stealth platform for entrepreneurs, startups and early adopters
- Transporter is an Uber-like platform to send physical goods
- Cabify Baby is a new service from the Madrid-based company suited for families with young kids
- The TouristEye app (acquired by Lonely Planet a few years ago) no longer exits. Javier Escribano (OnTruck) wrote a good bye letter
- Hawkers to open its first retail store in Madrid
- Novicap claims to have developed a strong system to assess consumer/SMBs risk
Big company news
- Interview with Google Spain director Fuencisla Clemares: “Amazon is one of Google’s main rivals”
- Microsoft requests more information from Spanish tax authorities regarding its €18.6 million inspection
- Tesla’s sales in Spain are… not great
- Spanish telcos have fired more than 5,000 people in the last two years
- Amazon launched its ‘Suscríbete y ahorra’ plan in Spain
- Hemerotek looked into BBVA’s digital strategy
- Oracle paid €19 million to Hacienda to settle claims for unpaid taxes
- Why Rakuten is partnering with FC Barcelona
- Worldpay poaches Santander innovation head
- Many Car2Go users in Madrid complain that cars are often parked in private garages
- Huawei has opened its first retail store in Madrid
Technology and policy
- BlaBlaCar won its fight against Confebus, which could have a big impact in the future of the sharing economy in Spain
- Equity crowdfunding: Spain’s CNMV has approved 21 platforms, less than half of all platforms which have applied
- Various taxi companies are asking the government to compensate them as use of Cabify and Uber grows
- Fintech companies are increasingly asking the Spanish government for regulation that allows them to get to market faster and iterate quicker