Startup funding news 💸

• Security startup 3ANTS raised €880,000 from JME, Bankinter, Big Sur Ventures and others
• Watchcity raised €600,000 from Sputnik Capital and business angels
• Worona raised €100,000 from Walter Kobylanski, Diego Mariño and Jose Maria Torroja

Startup exits 🎊

• El Español revealed the exact amount Idealista was sold for: €273 million. In an interview, co-founder Fernando Encinar, says that the company doesn’t rule out the possibility of going public
• ProA Capital is trying to sell tech consulting firm Ibermatica. The company had revenues of €234 million last year

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• El Referente ranked Spain’s top 25 startup accelerators and incubators
• Enisa and Indra signed an agreement to do (more) good in the Spanish tech ecosystem
• Kippel01 interviewed Miquel Marti, director of Barcelona Tech City
• Wayra UK launches accelerator to tackle the ‘poverty premium’
• SeedRocket and The Crowd Angel reached an agreement to promote equity crowdfunding as a financing alternative for startups

Startup news 💡

• Billy Mobile, among others, is being accused by Spain’s Guardia Civil of a scam involving SMS premiums that could amount to €30 million. Here’s a way to know if you’ve been affected by this
• Social media startup Audiense launched Insights, the definitive platform for insights-driven organisations
• Expansion interviewed Joshua Novick, CEO of Antevenio. The company went public in 2007 and currently has a market cap of €30 million
• Kippel01 interviewed Javier Megias, CEO of Startupxplore
• The creators of Helloumi launched Landbot.io, a platform that turns a landing page into a chat bot

Big company news 🏢

• El Español tried to understand the organisational structure created by Perez Dolset at ZED. It’s not an easy or simple on. The company is now being accused of receiving more than €100 million in subsidies for projects that it never built, including a new version of popular PC game Commandos. Perez Dolset was sent to jail late last week
• All of the details that we know so far about Mercadona’s new ecommerce project
• eDreams posted a profit of €10.7 million in its 2017 fiscal year, 16% less than in the previous period
• Telefonica merged its two largest digital subsidiaries. Nacho Cardero, El Confidencial’s director, published an interesting piece where it analyses Pallete’s first few months at the helm
• Dia reached a new agreement with Amazon to deliver groceries in Barcelona
• Alibaba and BBVA reached an agreement to bring Alipay to Spain
• Tesla to open its first (temporary) retail store in Spain, in Puerto Banús
• Oracle’s profit in Spain increased by 4X last year, to €4.4 million on revenues of €190 million
• BBVA chief’s data scientist, Marco Bressan, is leaving the company
• VozPopuli interviewed Chema Alonso, CDO at Telefonica

Tech and policy 💂🏼

• Deliveroo’s riders in Spain went on strike this weekend. They demand a minimum number of hours per week and fixed income. El Confidencial talked to various riders to understand their demands. Several riders were fired by Deliveroo as a consequence of these protests
• Cabify says that its competitors are not taxi drivers, but alternative transportation apps
• Airbnb’s struggles in Spain continue. The Barcelona local government continues to push the company and could impose a new fine soon
• Spain to ban selling VTC licenses in the following two years after they are assigned, thus limiting the second hand market for such licenses
• The director of taxi association Fedetaxi says that revenues are stable despite Uber or Cabify

Interesting reads 🤓

• From Jazztel to Lleida.net: the Spanish tech companies that survived the dotcom bubble
• 9 hacks to help you survive bureaucracy when moving to Barcelona. 5 Barcelona startups we’re into this month. 5 startups that grabbed our attention at Sónar+D in Barcelona
• Interesting article about Artificial Intelligence efforts in Galicia
• Cataluña amounts to 40% of all revenues generated in the Spanish videogame industry
• Marc Borras (OnTruck): ’What to use when you have multiple options in a form field’

Podcasts of the week 🎧

• MasQueStartups interviewed Luis Paris, CEO of Parclick
• K Fund interviewed Juanjo Mata (Netscape, Redbooth, Tileo) and Pablo Venture about drones