Startup funding news

• JobToday, the Luxembourg-based company that counts Spain as one of its main markets, raised €35 million from various media companies, including Atresmedia
• Odilo raised €6 million from Kibo Ventures and JME. El Español wrote about the company’s business model and operations
• Ski app Skitude raised €800,000
• Vitcord raised €750,000
• Fertility app Woom Fertility raised €480,000
• PeopleiTrust raised €250,000 from business angels
• Aura Innovative Robotics raised €246,000 via equity crowdfunding

Startup exits

• Scytl to postpone its plans to go public this year

Investor & accelerator news

• Nauta Capital led a £4 million round in London-based AI startup CloudIQ
• Impact Growth is looking to invest €3.6 million in European companies

Startup news

• Deporvillage reached sales of €22 million in 2016, a 100% year-on-year increase
• Reclamador expects to surpass €3.5 million in revenue this year, mostly thanks to new regulation affecting mortgages in Spain
• El Confidencial profiled OnTruck, Iñigo Juantegui’s new startup
• Play Wireless, the company that once developed the Commandos game, to go into administration
• Wallapop and Ironhack to offer €200,000 in scholarships to women interested in technology and coding
• Geoblink was the only Spanish startup in Bloomberg’s ranking of the 50 most interesting companies you’ve never heard of
• Politibot is back
• Tviso to launch its services in Mexico
• El Economista interviewed fintech startup Bnext
• JogoTech is a Spanish startup powering Mango’s innovative changing rooms at stores
• ‘Barcelona Startup News’ interviewed Portuguese startup HiJiffy, which currently participates in NUMA’s accelerator program in Barcelona

Big company news

• Telefonica expects to lay off more than 3,000 employees this year
• Uber opens its first customer service centre in Spain in Madrid
• Amazon to hire 500 people in Barcelona to serve SMEs
• Microsoft used Spain to repatriate €450 million back to the US
• Repsol and Amazon reached an agreement to allow consumers to pick up their orders at Spanish gas stations
• Car2go (Daimler) increased its prices in Madrid by 20% (€0.19/minute to €0.21)
• ZTE had sales of €342 million in 2015 and almost €3 million in profit

Tech and policy

• Spain’s Congress requests a better regulation for tech startups and investors
• Airbnb continues to negotiate with the local governments of Madrid and Barcelona to reach an agreement that would regulate its operations in Spain’s two main cities. The company is asking Spanish hosts to write to reach out to politicians to help Airbnb. El Confidencial also interviewed Airbnb’s co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk
• Hacienda (Spain’s tax office) is paying increasing attention to people who rent their rooms and houses on Airbnb

Interesting reads

• Kippel01 news wrote about Spain’s women tech executives
• Jordi Romero (Factorial): Getting the first customers into the funnel
• El Pais interviewed Idealista’s Fernando Encinar
• Eduardo Manchón (Panoramio, Mailtrack): Buying groceries online in Spain is a shitty experience
• Javier Escribano (OnTruck): The product process at OnTruck
• Tomás Santoro (SumaCRM): How we scale our sales team
• Bruno Pedro (Hitch): What you need to know before building an API for your product