Dealflow.es #433: Metricool's success. Seaya goes PE. BizAway raised €35M.
Dealflow.es #433: Metricool's success. Seaya goes PE. BizAway raised €35M.
Welcome to the #433 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 💸
Italian and Spanish company BizAway, a business travel startup, raised €35M from Mayfair Equity Partners. More info here
Madrid-based Tuio, an insurtech startup, raised €15M in equity and debt, led by new investors BlackRock and MassMutual Ventures. Founded in 2021, Tuio aims to reach profitability soon and currently serves over 45,000 customers, focusing on home and life insurance. MMV wrote about the investment here
Sevilla-based Kampaoh raised €8M and launched an investment vehicle of €50M to acquire tourism assets in nature, with the goal of expanding its business model in the camping sector. The company forecasts revenues of €32M 2024 (vs. €23M in 2023)
Barcelona-based Nurture, a new app for children aged 4 to 7 that uses interactive gameplay to teach essential life skills, raised $2.8M led by Golden Gate Ventures
Vigo-based Optare Solutions raised €1.7M in preparation for its listing on the BME Growth
Madrid-based energy startup Samara added €1.5M to its Series A round announced before the summer, from Portuguese fund Mustard Seed Maze
Cavela, a US startup with several engineers in Spain, announced a $2M seed round with investors such as Propel (BBVA’s venture arm) and XYZ. Cavela pairs companies with an AI agent that learns about the type of product they want to have manufactured
M&A news 🚀
Team.blue acquired a majority stake in the Spanish social media management platform Metricool, valuing the company at over €100M (according to Expansion). Metricool, founded in 2015, has €17M in ARR and has grown to date with no outside capital. The founders sold a 20% stake to Axon in 2022 in a secondary transaction. Juan Pablo Tejela, co-founder, appeared on the itnig podcast to talk about the transaction. Some numbers of Metricool’s remarcable performance to date.
Seaya acquired a 70% stake in Bike Ocasión, a second-hand bicycle marketplace, through its Andromeda fund. The deal values Bike Ocasión between €10-20M. The company, which has sold 15,000 bikes to date, expects to reach €13M in revenue this year. In 2023 the Bike Ocasion had been acquired by search fund Taurus Capital, who will retains a minority stake post-acquisition. This is Seaya’s first majority investment to date. Seaya wrote about the deal here
French group EDG acquired consulting and digital transformation firm Garaje de Ideas. Garaje de Ideas, founded in 2015, expects to reach €20M in sales this year
Italian tech company TeamSystem acquired 100% of the capital of Coruña-based Distrito K, specialized in ERP software for SMEs. Distrito K, founded in 1997, expects to reach a turnover of €8.5M this year and has 6,000 customers. TeamSystem has been quite active in Spain, with acquisitions of Billin, Acumbamail, Aplifisa and others. The company claims to have invested €180M in Spain since 2021
Product Hackers acquired Libros.com
Spanish startup Smartvel acquired also Spanish startup Avuxi to enhance its destination content and AI capabilities. More here
Achilles Information, a British company specializing in supply chain risk management, has acquired Spanish tech consulting firm GoSupply
Investor & accelerator news 🚀
Mundi Ventures is about to do a first closing of its new megafund at €650M. The target size is €1B
Óscar Fanjul, former president of Repsol and vicepresident of Ferrovial, launched HWK Techinvestment, a VC management company to back software startups. The plan is to raise two funds, of €20M and €45M, respectively
Galdana Ventures launched two new funds for secondaries in VC firms and another for co-investments with funds
Itnig is looking for an “exceptional individual to lead Itnig Capital VC fund.”
Interview with my colleague and Kfund founder Iñaki Arrola
Spanish investors active abroad:
Nauta led a €7M round in French startup Wegrow
Startup news 💡
Edicom, a Valencia-based tech company specializing in electronic document transactions, reported significant growth in 2023, with revenues reaching €219.5M, up 18%. The firm achieved a net profit of €124.9M, demonstrating a remarkable profit margin of 57%
Jobandtalent has hired PJT Partners to help refinance its €600M debt. The company aims to lower the cost of its debt and extend repayment terms, shifting focus from rapid growth through acquisitions to improving profitability. In 2022, Jobandtalent recorded revenues of €1.9B but had a negative EBITDA and €240M in net losses. The new strategy is expected to show a positive EBITDA in 2024
Mundimoto plans to expand internationally in 2025, focusing on France, Portugal, and the Netherlands, with an emphasis on motorcycle renting. Sales in 2023 reached €70M
Holaluz reached an agreement with 14 banks, including CaixaBank, Santander, and BBVA, to extend its debt repayments until December 2024, as the company seeks to restructure €60M in debt
AI assistant LuzIA says it has reached 50M users worldwide. The article doesn’t specify if those are registered users, active, etc. I’m pretty sure it refers to registered users (or downloads)
The Odilo saga continues: a dismissed employee plans to take the investment funds that control the company to court. Also, workers of Odilo demand the reinstatement of former CEO Rodrigo Rodríguez after his dismissal in July
Cabify shared with the public some of their Figma assets, a nice gesture that should be welcome by the design community
GPTAdvisor, the new company from Salvador Mas (Finametrix), published a demo of its product here
Founder flywheel: an article about the companies that have been founded by former employees of Factorial
Auth0 is obviously not a Spanish startup. However, their recently announced Forms product has a clear Spanish and Galician origin. The company acquired Coruña-based Arengu in 2023 to, in part, replicate what they had developed internally. Jacobo Vidal, previously CEO and co-founder of Arengu, wrote about the launch here
Foreign companies active in Spain:
Danish expense management company Pleo to start offering liquidity solutions to Spanish SMEs
German neobroker Trade Republic is aiming to become a full-service neobank in Spain. It has applied for a local banking license, allowing it to offer services like IBANs, Bizum payments, and direct deposit for salaries
Crescenta es la primera gestora digital de Capital Privado para invertir en fondos exclusivos, con rentabilidades objetivo de +15%*.
Hasta ahora estaban reservados a altos patrimonios, pero hemos democratizado esta inversión dándote acceso desde 10.000€ (a desembolsar gradualmente).
EQT, Cinven, Insight... fondos de primer nivel a golpe de clic.
Invierte en Crescenta.com | Consulta los fondos
*Referencia a resultados históricos simulados. Rentabilidades pasadas no implican rentabilidades futuras. Más info sobre riesgos: crescenta.com/condiciones
Big company & policy news 🤓
In Spain's cloud market, major tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have clashed before the CNMC (Spain's competition regulator). Google and Amazon accuse Microsoft of using restrictive software licenses to favor its cloud platform, Azure. French company OVHcloud also claims that all three tech giants are creating barriers that hinder customer migration. The CNMC is studying the sector to ensure competition and may intervene to address these concerns
Iberdrola is in negotiations to launch a subsidiary of €10B specialized in data centers, in collaboration with a large investment fund
Interesting reads 🤓
Íñigo Medina, Chief Product Officer at Filmin, wrote “Por qué son tan difíciles los productos basados en software”
“Seis meses dentro de la mayor aceleradora de España”. Nacho Sanchez Jurado, founder of Montchis writes about his experience at Lanzadera
Ignacio Arriaga (Acumbamail) wrote “Ser una plataforma: cómo convertirse en imparable”
David Bonilla published “Software dogmático”
Podcasts 🔈
Bajando al Barro interviewed Jaime Medina, of The Startup CFO
Historias de Crecimiento interviewed Joaquin Cuenca, CEO of Freepik
Nova interviewed Fátima Bigeriego, Country Manager of Cosmico
Itnig interviewed Carlos Horno, founder of Dealcar
Product Hackers interviewed Chema González, of Alterhome