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Startup funding news 💸

• Biotech startup GlyCardial Diagnostics raised €2.4 million
• Continuum Security raised €1.5 million from Swanlaab, JME and Sonae
• Fintech startup Novicap raised €1 million from Partech Ventures and Techstars
• Biotech startup Biohope raised €325,000 via equity crowdfunding platform Capital Cell
• Deporvillage raised a small round of funding

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Cabiedes & Partners, Rocket Internet, TA Ventures and Global Founders Capital invested in Turkish proptech startup Evtiko (Tiko in Spain). The company disclosed this week that it has raised more than €35 million to date
• Pablo Ventura (K Fund): ’Cap tables and funding rounds: what should entrepreneurs expect?’
• According to Kippel01, AngelClub (Eneko Knorr, Enrique Dubois) are interested in investing in insurtech startup Coverfy
• Rosauro Varó (Globalia) to acquire a bunch of VTC licenses
• Here are the 7 startups that made the Conector Startup Day Barcelona cut
• The Venezuelan petrodollars that are hidden behind Hawker’s glasses. El Confidencial published an interesting profile on Alejandro Betancourt, the investor that backed Hawkers with €50 million a couple of years ago. According to Economia Digital, Cabify rejected Betancourt’s money in a previous occasion

Startup news 💡

• Great profile of We Are Knitters: the company expects to reach €5 million in revenues this year and will soon become profitable, having raised less than €1 million to date
• Cabify announced surge pricing, which means that certain rides will cost more depending on supply and demand. On another note, this is how the Spanish government wants to inspect Cabify and Uber’s cars
• Kantox adds 57 new currencies, opening new frontiers in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East
• Tutellus announced a new decentralized platform based on Blockchain
• Clicars claims to have helped sell more than 1,000 cars in Spain to date
• P2P lending startup Comunitae has temporarily ceased operations after detecting high levels of fraud
• Car selling marketplace Carwow could soon launch in Spain. The UK company, which has raised more than $39 million, is looking for a local country manager
• Some Black Friday metrics: Muroexe says it sold more than €500,000 in shoes during the weekend; Tradeinn surpassed the €5 million mark
• Startup profiles: Easy Payments Gateway (fintech), Bnext (fintech), Kasaz (proptech)

Big (local) company news 🏢

• Telefonica had a big week with several announcements: Pallete says that they expect to have 370 million clients in 2020; its intelligent customer service platform Aura will be unveiled in early 2018 and will be available in six countryes; the company claims to be willing to partner with OTT services such as Netflix or HBO (Netflix CEO Reed Hastings gave a keynote speech at the company’s private event)
• Miguel Angel Uriondo (El Español) published an op-ed about Telefonica’s announcements and where it might be headed in the next few years
• eDreams Odigeo reached €254 million in revenues in the first six months of its current fiscal year, 6% more than in the previous year. Profitability took a hit
• Vodafone to add content from Spanish startup Filmin to its video offering

Big (foreign) company news 🏦

• Amazon is offering up to €14 per hour to freelancers willing to deliver the company’s packages in some Spanish cities, as part of its Amazon Flex program
• Deliveroo settled with riders that sued the company over working conditions, thus avoiding seeing each other in court
• Amazon plans to set up more than 120 automatic lockers throughout Spain, to make it easier to pick up items bought on the site. El Español published an overview of the sector, where incumbents such as Correos or Amazon compete with smaller startups such as Citibox, among others
• Confebus and Blablacar will soon see each other in Spanish court. Spain is the only country in the world where the company has faced legal issues

Interesting reads 🤓

• El Español interviewed South Summit founder Maria Benjumea. She claims that talent in Silicon Valley is not better than in Europe
• Interesting analysis in El Pais about the Spanish foodtech market
• A supercomputer is hidden in a Barcelona 19th-century chapel – and it’s stunning

Podcasts of the week 🎧

• K Fund interviewed Jose Miguel Herrero, co-founder of investment firm Big Sur Ventures
• MQS interviewed Tomas Serna, lawyer specialised in tech and VC