I’m no expert on the data centre space, but here are some interesting articles I found this week on the new requirements from the Spanish government for all data centre projects, and reactions from companies such as Amazon and others that have committed billions of euros to Spain in the next few years:
Strong op-ed in El Confidencial: “Centros de datos: cómo destrozar una ventaja competitiva”
Amazon, which has committed €33.7B in Aragón through 2035, warn that retroactive requirements could put already-permitted projects at risk.
Three international investors say €9B of projects could move abroad, while Quetta Data Centers argues that building matching renewables within 18 months is unrealistic.
After hundreds of objections, the government has signalled it may soften the rules, though it remains focused on limiting pressure on electricity bills.
The uncertainty also affects Spain’s proposed €5B AI gigafactory
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Startup funding news 💸
👉 Friendly reminder that we now have Dealflow Data, where all of 2026’s funding rounds and exits are visible and searchable.
€20M+ rounds:
HVR Energy, a Madrid-based operator specialized in hydrogen refueling infrastructure, raised a €20M Series A at a €120M post-money valuation. Sandton led with €15M
€10 to €15M rounds:
Deneb Medical, a San Sebastián-based company specializing in robotics for healthcare, raised €14.7M in a public-private capital increase, including €7.2M from Spain’s SETT
Vaxdyn, a Seville-based biotech, raised €11M in a Series A led by Portugal’s Biovance Capital (€4M), with Arcano Partners (€3.6M) also participating
€1M to €10M rounds:
BizAway, the Italian and Spanish corporate travel startup, secured €10M in financing from BBVA to fund its acquisition of Dutch firm Uniglobe Alliance Travel
HeyDiga, a Madrid and Barcelona-based startup providing service businesses with AI agents that handle calls and customer interactions, raised raised €5.5M in a round led by 6 Degrees Capital (their reason why here), joined by us at Kfund and Italian Founders Fund. We led HeyDiga’s prior pre-seed round 12 months ago
Other rounds of funding:
Dimenso, a company based in the US but with Spanish founders, raised €600k in a round led by Draper B1, with Next Tier Ventures. Dimenso builds AI tools for scientific laboratories
M&A news 🎊
New filings reveal the scale of Asana’s acquisition of US/Spanish startup StackAI. On top of the initial cash payment, Asana granted StackAI’s roughly 80 employees 7.5M shares tied to retention and performance, plus up to $20M in further performance-based stock after one year. The package could be worth $73M–$82M
Green Eagle Solutions raised a majority investment from Copilot Capital. Green Eagle automates renewable energy operations and had raised €6M from Kibo and others
Inveready merged Sercomgas and Easyner to create Grupo Sercom, a provider of high-value technology services for the electricity and gas markets
Startup news 💡
Startup profiles:
Profile of Akaio, a Boston- and Madrid-based startup that uses AI to generate viable business ideas
Profile of Valencia-based iPronics, the UPV spin-off that announced last week a $125M round with participation from Nvidia (Nvidia’s first investment in Spain)
Profile of FuVeX, a Navarra-based company that designs, manufactures, and operates long-range unmanned aircraft for critical infrastructure inspection. They’ve raised over €13M since its founding
Profile of Paratech, the space-tech startup that develops high-precision recovery systems for space cargo
Product and startup launches:
World models startup Sperid Labs unveiled ENEAS, a text-promptable method for instance tracking and semantic discovery
Clio launched its platform in Spain, a year after acquiring Spanish and US legal database vLex from Oakley Capital in a deal valuing it above $1B
PLD Space unveiled the Miura 9, a fully reusable two-stage rocket to be completed before 2028
Financials:
Multiverse Computing lost nearly €24M in 2025 with sales of €11.1M
Wallbox will cease production at its Arlington, Texas factory and relocate its remaining US manufacturing to Barcelona
Personnel changes and new openings:
idealista launched operations in France, its 4th market
HappyRobot appointed Alberto Granados as Non-Executive Chairman of Growth and Expansion. Granados spent most of his career at Microsoft, serving as President of Microsoft Spain until 2025
French shift management startup Skello, recently raised €200M and announced plans to double its Barcelona team to nearly 250 by 2027
British-origin biotech Tolemy Bio is establishing operations in Barcelona. The company raised €1.4M in a pre-seed round led by Norrsken Evolve last year
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Investor news 🤑
Nazca Capital appointed Carme Artigas as Operating Partner
Lanzadera announced 124 new startups in its newest batch
Bewater Funds exited its stake in Spanish cosmetics brand LiCO Cosmetics after three years on the cap table
Samaipata promoted Íñigo Laucirica to Partner. He had joined in 2021 from Barclays
Big company & policy news 🏢
Madrid announced it will become the first European region to launch a self-driving car and taxi pilot, starting in Q4 2026
BBVA named Joseph Saab as its new global head of software development. He was previously at BCG
El Corte Inglés launched an automated logistics platform in Madrid district to boost online grocery sales
Interesting reads 🤓
Joaquin Mencia published “Growth Is a Search Problem: Why Companies Keep Planning Their Way Into Markets That Don’t Exist”
Two Spanish mathematicians, Diego Córdoba (ICMAT-CSIC) and Luis Martínez-Zoroa (CUNEF), have emerged as central figures after OpenAI claimed to solve the Navier-Stokes equations
Jordi Villar published “Every Millisecond Counts: On improving ClickHouse query performance to the millisecond”
Simon Muñoz (Voicemod) published “Zombiecornios: Los muertos vivientes del ecosistema startup”
Samuel Gil (JME) published “El fin de los systems of record, que te paguen por ser tú, la odisea de la vida, y el problema de vivir más”