Dealflow.es #423: Cobee's exit. Argilla acquired by Hugging Face. Bespoke Pixel raised €25m.
Dealflow.es #423: Cobee's exit. Argilla acquired by Hugging Face. Bespoke Pixel raised €25m.
Welcome to the #423 edition of the Dealflow.es: a weekly summary of everything that happened in the Spanish startup and tech investing ecosystem.
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Startup funding news 💸
A group of European gaming pioneers, led by former Ubisoft executive David Polfeldt, is investing €25 million to establish Bespoke Pixel in Barcelona. The new studio will focus on developing AAA games for consoles and PCs
According to El Confidencial, Cabify has requested additional capital from its shareholders, raising €20 million to support its growth plans. Despite strong performance in 2023, with revenues of approximately €831.2 million (+30% YoY), Cabify continues to seek funds to maintain positive cash flow. Notable participants in this funding round include Orilla Asset Management, Mutua Madrileña, and Rakuten, while prominent investors like Rosauro Varo and Seaya Ventures did not participate
NeuronUP, a Logroño-based leader in cognitive rehabilitation, raised €10 million from Moira Capital Partners. NeuronUP uses advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence for neurorehabilitation purposes
Santander and Barlon Capital have invested €7 million in the room rental app Badi. The funding, split between €5 million from Barlon Capital and €2 million in debt from Santander, will support Badi's business expansion. In its first iteration, Badi raised more than $50 million from VCs, but reached an agreement with them to regain back control of the company. Founder Carlos Pierre wrote about it here
Ray Studios, a Paris-based startup founded by David Rodríguez (founder of CornerJob), raised €4.62 million to expand its tattoo removal business. The round was led by Nickleby Capital. The company operates in Spain, France, and Belgium
Barcelona-based startup Danelfin has raised €2 million in a funding round led by Nauta Capital to develop its AI-powered stock analytics platform
Poolcomet, an online swimming pool supply store, raised funding from a bunch of well-known business angels from companies such as Deporvillage, Indexa Capital, Freepik, Packlink and others. Poolcomet currently has annualized revenues of approximately €3 million euros
M&A news 🚀
Employee benefits startup Cobee was acquired by French competitor Pluxee. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Cobee had raised more than $50 million in funding from international VCs Balderton, Notion and Octopus, as well as local investors such as Encomenda and Lanai. Co-founder Borja Aranguren wrote about the exit here, and so did investor and board member Oriol Juncosa, here
Argilla, an open-source data curation platform for LLMs, got acquired by French startup Hugging Face for $10 million (according to Bloomberg). Argilla’s founder Daniel Vila wrote about the exit here. Argilla had raised funding from Criteria Venture Tech (formerly Caixa Capital Risc), among others
EQT is seeking to reinvest in Idealista as a minority shareholder alongside Cinven, which is negotiating exclusively to acquire the real estate portal for around €3 billion. EQT, holding 55% of Idealista, intends to reinvest via its EQT X fund
Babel, a tech consulting firm which serves major banks and insurers, is up for sale with a valuation of around €300 million. Babel is expected to close the year with revenues over €220 million and an EBITDA of €25 million, thus looking for a 12x EBITDA multiple
Catalan telco Parlem has acquired Pinergia's telco business, expanding its offering of mobile telephony and fiber optic services in the Pyrenees area. In 2023, Parlem recorded a positive EBITDA of three million euros and increased its revenue by 36%
PE firm PSG is putting the technology company Mapal up for sale, targeting a price of up to €350 million. Mapal specializes in software solutions for the hospitality industry
US AI startup Harvey is aiming for a $2 billion valuation and considering the acquisition legal company vLex. vLex, with offices in Spain and in the US, was recently part of a merge
Investor & accelerator news 🚀
Inveready launched "Club Deal" a new direct investment proposal aimed at family offices and individual investors. This initiative allows investors to co-invest alongside Inveready in technology companies
Spanish investors investing abroad:
The Venture City co-led a €10 million round of British startup Sidekick
Nina Capital participated in the financing of Swiss biotech company Rivia
LaLiga, in collaboration with accelerator SportBoost, has launched the Meet LaLiga EA Sports innovation program. This initiative aims to identify and support startups developing innovative solutions in sports technology
New report: State of Corporate Venturing in Spain in 2024
Startup news 💡
Quite a few startups announced new product launches last week:
Tinybird launched Tinybird Charts, a new functionality to turn API Endpoints into real-time visualizations
Cofers, a new startup founded by the former CTO of Packlink and key employees of GoTrendier
ForceManager launched Dana AI Plus, an AI-powered tool that provides support, automates sales reporting, and boosts productivity by reducing administrative tasks
Freepik introduced Retouch, a tool to remove, edit, and adjust details of images in real time
TaxDown launched AsesorIA, a free tax chatbot expert in income tax returns
Capchase, the provider of non-dilutive financing, announced its expansion into Ireland
Long interview with Diego Bestard, CEO and co-founder of Urbanitae. He discusses the company's success in revolutionizing real estate investment in Spain through crowdfunding. Urbanitae has facilitated over 140 projects with more than 100,000 investments, and helping real estate projects raise over €280 million euros since 2019. Urbanitae is a Kfund portfolio company
The bankruptcy administrator of Scytl has initiated the sale of the company's assets in batches as part of its liquidation process. This step follows Scytl's insolvency declaration and aims to maximize the value of the remaining assets. The sale process includes various technological and intellectual property assets
Humanox, a startup known for its smart shin guards and backed by investors like Telefónica, faces legal action from 122 investors. The company promised a Nasdaq listing or a refund with interest after a 2021 capital increase via broker GPM, which failed to materialize
Pro Shop, a company specializing in padel equipment, anticipates doubling its revenues to €20 million in 2024 due to the sport's boom in Spain
Flying Bark Productions, an Australian animation studio, is set to open a new studio in Madrid. The Madrid studio will complement Flying Bark's existing operations, enabling the company to undertake more extensive and diverse animation projects
Startup profiles:
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Big company & policy news 🤓
PE firms Cinven and EQT are planning to sell a stake in Hotelbeds and take a dividend of €440 million ahead of the potential sale. The private equity firms are preparing Hotelbeds for an initial public offering (IPO) or a private sale, expected to value the company at around €3 billion
More data centre news:
Nunsys said that it is investing €15 million to expand its data center in Paterna, Valencia, which it acquired from Tissat in 2018
Microsoft has opened its first data center region in Spain focused on AI capabilities
Also on the topic of AI:
Engineer and entrepreneur Ignasi Belda has been appointed as the CEO of Aesia, the Spanish Agency for Supervision of Artificial Intelligence
Sony has chosen Barcelona to install a AI research center, with the aim of developing AI systems and exploring projects related to gastronomy
The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) closed the door to an agreement with Booking.com to close the file of the 'megafine' of €486 million for abuse of dominant position
Santander launched Zinia in Spain, a Buy-Now-Pay-Later service
Interesting reads 🤓
Marcos Sorribas, co-founder of Tacter, published “Why is "The Gaming Vertical Platform" the next $1B opportunity?“. Tacter is a Kfund portfolio company
Ignacio Arriaga published “Qué puedes aprender sobre el leak de Google“
Javier Escribano published “Necesitamos más y mejores Engineering Managers“
Podcasts 🔈
Expansion interviewed Alejandro Artacho (Spotahome)
Evergrowing interviewed Miguel Carranza (RevenueCat)
Product Leaders interviewed Luis Llorens (PlugAndPlay)
Itnig interviewed Luis Osorio (Stayforlong)
0100 Conferences interviewed Yoko Kojima (Mundi Ventures)
Historias de Crecimiento interviewed Alicia Zurita (Lubets)
Kfund interviewed Alexandre Berriche (Fleet)
SeedRocket interviewed Eduardo Navarro (Sherpa, Urbanitae, Crescenta)
Product Hackers interviewed Christian Rodriguez (Mutter Ventures)