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Startup funding news 💸

• eSports startup TGX raised €600,000
• Galician startup Apprenta raised €400,000
• Clothing brand The Brubaker raised €217,000 via Startupxplore
• Energy company Klenergy is raising funding through an ICO

Startup exits 🎊

• eDreams Odigeo is on sale. The company’s stock increased substantially this week as it seems that it has several potential buyers

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Startup accelerator program TheVentureCity announced the launch of its €100 million investment fund. The company has offices in Miami, Madrid and San Francisco
• Two tech-focused VCs, Alma Mundi Ventures and Swaanlab, received backing from ICO
• Kippel01 interviewed Javier Megias, CEO of syndicate investment platform Startupxplore
• SPiCE VC announced the hiring of Vincenç Martí and Jocellin Lee
• Encomenda VC has started its investment activity

Startup news 💡

• Hawkers is looking for a CEO. According to El Español, Pedro Serrahima (Pepephone) has rejected the opportunity
• Cabify expects to have 15,000 drivers in Spain in the next year
• El Confidencial profiled Bipi, a startup that offers a car rental subscription service that starts at €199 per month
• El Español profiled Pangea, a travel agency with a hybrid approach (online and offline). The company had revenues of €8 million in 2016 and posted a loss of €3 million
• Travel startup ByHours to launch its services in Argentina and Colombia
• Fashiola, a Dutch startup acquired by Spanish advertising company Mitula at the end of last year, launched its fashion comparison site in the US and northern Europe
• Interview with Ignacio Rodés, co-founder and CEO of RocketROI
• Interview with Barbara Roman, co-founder and CEO of legal startup NoLegalTech
• Spanish payments startup Lemonpay expects to reach €300,000 in transactions this year

Big (local) company news 🏢

• Amadeus announced €3.6 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2017 and a profit of €434 million
• Mercadona is now serious about its digital strategy, having poached talent from Amazon, eBay, Jobandtalent and Ticketea
• MasMovil has shut down UppTalk. The telco also announced financial results this week
• Competition in the urban carsharing market is about to increase, with the launch of Zity (Ferrovial and Renault) in December in Madrid
• Abanca has signed a partnership with TokApp

Big (foreign) company news 🏦

• Schibsted Spain increased its revenue by 23% in the first three quarters of 2017, to €101 million. Spain is now the third most important market for the company
• Amazon to hire 2,700 temporary workers ahead of its Christmas campaign in Spain. Related to this topic, El Confidencial looked at the working conditions of workers who do the picking of items at Amazon’s distribution centres in Spain
• New Relic continues growth in Barcelona, having hired the tech team of API management platform Hitch
• Facebook continues to pay very little taxes in Spain: €182,000 in corporate taxes for the last year
• Tesla published its first financial results. Too soon to draw strong conclusions
• Orange Bank could soon be available in Spain. Xataka Movil has a review of the service

Interesting reads 🤓

• Two very interesting articles about how to hire: Javier Santana (Carto) published ‘Hiring in a startup’ and Felix Lopez (former CTO of ShuttleCloud) 'about hiring processes’
• El Pais looked at how Spanish agriculture is being transformed by technology
• VozPopuli published a profile of the current health of the Barcelona tech ecosystem
• 16 brilliant Barcelona start-ups to watch in 2018
• Forbes: What other startup ecosystems can learn from Barcelona
• Ramon Recuero (Y Combinator): 'Crypto Evolution’
• Interview with Juan Luis Hortelano (Plug and Play, Blinkfire Analytics): “Valencia is going to position itself as the (fiscal) headquarters of many Barcelona startups”

Podcasts of the week 🎧

• MasQueStartups interviewed the founders of food delivery startup Wetaca