Offices available for teams up to 40 people at The Foundery, Barcelona’s coolest space for startups and freelances. Located in a unique building in Plaza Real, only a 5 minutes walk from Pier One, one of the city’s most lively startups hub, we have completely equipped offices of 325, 200,150, 40 and 20 sq meters, and a beautiful rooftop with 360 views to Barcelona. We also offer space for corporate events and coworking space. Ask for information now and get a 20% discount the first month!

Startup funding news 💸

• Spanish startups have raised €845 million so far in 2017 across 195 deals, according to Startupxplore
• Agora Images raised €625,000 from Esade BAN
• Amadeus Ventures invested in Barcelona-based AVUXI, the startup that ranks the popularity of every place on earth
• Business angel network BA Swan invested in myABCKit and TeamEQ

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Inveready announced a new €16 million venture debt fund, called Inveready Convertible Finance
• US investment fund King Street Capital plans to buy up to 2,000 VTC licenses, the kind used by Cabify and Uber to operate in Spain
• Conector Galicia accelerator announced its first fintech startup competition
• Genesis Ventures is a new biotech venture firm based in Barcelona
• Interview with Carlos Domingo of SPiCE VC
• Edtech startup accelerator SEK Lab announced its latest batch

Startup news 💡

• The three founders of mobile payments startup Verse were fired last week
• Last mile delivery company Glovo had revenues of €1.2 million in 2016. El Español talked to co-founder Sacha Michaud about the company’s plans in the short term. Glovo plans to reach €10 million in sales this year
• Hawkers plans to open 20 more retail stores in Spain
• Expansion talked to Softonic’s CEO Scott Arpijan: “Softonic is now smaller but profitable”
• Various former professional basketball players have launched Globatalent, a blockchain platform to buy and sell sports players rights
• Startup profile: Clicpiso (real estate marketplace, following Opendoor’s model), Wegow (online ticketing platform for music events), MasAltos (shoe ecommerce), Hurrynow (last mile delivery), Odilo (content as a service, edtech), Brokoli (insurtech)

Big (local) company news 🏢

• Miguel Arias, Carto’s COO, to be named Telefonica’s new Open Future director
• From Santander to EVO bank: how are Spanish banks adapting to today’s digital era?
• Various Spanish traditional taxi companies want pricing flexibility to be able to compete with Uber and Cabify

Big (foreign) company news 🏦

• El Confidencial published a long piece about the working conditions of workers who deliver Amazon’s packages in Spain
• Could Amazon sell drugs (medicines) in Spain?
• Alibaba is poaching talent from Amazon to run its Spanish business
• AliExpress to start selling Spanish goods, starting with fashion products. Here’s how the Chinese firm plans to compete with Amazon in Spain
• Orange is getting ready to launch its own bank in Spain
• Activision Blizzard revenues in Spain are down from €50 million in 2010 to €30 million in 2016

Interesting reads 🤓

• Great profile of Iñaki Berenguer, the Spanish serial entrepreneur that is now trying to disrupt the US insurance market with Coverwallet. His previous exits include Pixable and Contactive
• El Confindencial published a piece about the “dark” side of entrepreneurship: building your own business is not easy
• El Pais profiled entrepreneur and investor Adeyemi Ajao (Tuenti, Identified, investor in Cabify and now at Urizen Ventures)
• What OnTruck has learned in the process of internationalising its apps

Podcasts of the week 🎧

• CodelyTV interviewed with Raul Raja, CTO of 47 Degrees
• MasQueStartups interviewed with Loly Garrido, CEO of Gudog