Dealflow.es #439: Inbrain raised $50M. ForceManager exit. 2nd Spanish €1B fund?
A weekly summary of everything that happened in the Spanish startup and tech investing ecosystem.
Avi Meir, CEO of TravelPerk, published this post last week about a member of the leadership team that’s expecting a baby. I think encouraging employees -and the public in general- to have kids is great. I totally respect those that decide not to have them, but I think that in today’s society, some people (myself included, back in the day) tend to postpone having kids to prioritise work, their lifestyle, and many other things.
Sometimes, when you try to have them, it’s too difficult or can even be too late.
Hats off to Avi.
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Startup funding news 💸
Barcelona-based Inbrain Neuroelectronics secured $50M in a Series B round, led by imec.xpand, with participation from EIC Fund, Fond ICO Next Tech, CDTI-Innvierte, and others. The funds will support the development of its AI-driven, graphene-based brain-computer interface technology. More info here
Salamanca-based insect producer Tebrio secured €30M in funding to expand its production of mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) at its facility. This funding will help the company scale to produce over 100,000 tons annually to meet the rising global demand for sustainable insect-based products, including animal feed and bioplastics
Barcelona-based BusUp has concluded a €13M financing round with investments from Sabadell Venture Capital, Finaccess, and other funds. BusUp, which provides shared and multimodal daily transport solutions, operates in Europe, Latin America, and the US and recently expanded into Italy
A Coruña-based Hack A Boss, a tech training school, raised €5.5M from Axon Partners Group. Hack a Boss offers bootcamps in web development, data analytics, data science, and AI
M&A transasctions 🎉
Sage acquired ForceManager, a Barcelona-based mobile CRM solution supporting SMEs' sales processes. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. ForceManager was founded 13 years ago by Oscar Macia and Xavier Bisbal. Oscar wrote about the news here and he also appeared on the itnig podcast. The company had raised around $16M in funding to date
Investor & accelerator news 🚀
Nadia Calviño announced that the European Investment Bank (EIB) will back a second Spanish megafund with a target of €1B, as part of the European Tech Champions Initiative. This follows an earlier €350M EIB investment in Kembara, a Mundi Ventures fund supporting tech and climate startups. Additionally, Spain plans a further €300M contribution to the initiative. Calviño also mentioned the potential creation of an "exit fund" to facilitate investor withdrawals (secondary transactions)
Spanish investors active abroad:
Suma Capital invested €40M in MobilityPlus, a Belgium-based B2B of provider of EV solutions
Prosegur Tech Ventures participated in the $17.5M Series A round of Boston-based cybersec company DeNexus. Also, the founders of Prosegur, the Revoredo family, have recently formalized GTV Capital as a venture capital entity (SCR) under their holding company, Gubel.
Cardumen Capital participated in the $7.6M round of Israeli startup Verax AI
Interview with Marta Antunez, investment director at Wayra
Startup news 💡
Product and company launches:
Lang.ai CEO Jorge Penalva announced a pivot for the company, relaunching with a new focus on Snowflake integration. Originally launched in 2018 to leverage unstructured customer data for improved CX, now it’s re-launching as a native AI agents application in Snowflake
Jose de Cabo (formerly of Olapic, also now co-founder of Remotely Works) announced the launch of RemotelyOS, a product to help companies“build recurrent revenue and long-lasting customer relationships by launching a nearshore staff augmentation business”. Also, Pau Sabria shared that Remotely Works is at $25M in GMV
Securitize, founded by Spaniard Carlos Domingo, has exceeded $1B in tokenized on-chain assets and launched Securitize Fund Services, a platform to modernize fund administration. The service streamlines tasks like investor onboarding, token issuance, and fund NAV calculations using blockchain and smart contracts
Company financials:
Indexa Capital Group reported 31% YoY growth in H1 2024, with €2.99M in revenue and €200K in net profit. The robo-advisor now manages €2.49B. Indexa, listed on BME Growth since July, aims to be Spain's largest independent asset manager, with a goal of €10B under management by 2030
Product Hackers will surpass €6M in revenue in 2024, marking a 53% growth. Known for data-driven growth strategies, the company serves over 120 clients across sectors like eCommerce, fintech, and digital products. This year, they launched "AI Hackers," a new division focused on AI solutions, and expanded into international markets, including Mexico and the U.S
ByteTravel, listed on BME Scaleup, reported growth of 86% YoY in H1 2024, reaching €4.82M and EBITDA 3X-ing to over €900K. The firm, focused on digital travel solutions, has 92% of clients outside Spain. Also, Estrategias de Inversion published a post on “ByteTravel: 10 claves de por qué se consolida en el BME Scaleup tras un cierre semestral muy sólido”
SolarProfit, a solar panel installation firm, has had its stock trading suspended on BME Growth due to delays in presenting its audited financials for the first half of 2024. The company reported a negative EBITDA of €14.3M on €9.9M in revenue for the period up to June
Other news:
Travel tech company Exoticca has doubled its office space in Barcelona by moving to a 5,000-square-meter facility on Aribau Street. This expansion supports plans to hire 300 additional staff within 18 months, focusing on technology and Spanish-language markets, while reinforcing its presence in Latin America. Exoticca has 400 current employees, targets €300M in 2024 revenue and primarily serves clients in the US, Canada, and the UK
Spanish aerospace startup PLD Space, known for its Miura rocket series, plans to reach EBITDA breakeven by 2026, with projected revenues of €75.6M. By 2027, PLD intends to offer reusable rockets to boost profitability
Manfred lanza su Tech Career Report 2024
Agárrate a la silla porque hoy sí que te traemos un MEGATONIO DE PLUTONIO 👽. Hoy sale a la luz algo que llevamos bastante tiempo cocinando. Y que nos hace especial ilusión porque viene cargado de novedades y una reflexión importante.
Hoy sale… ¡¡La tercera edición del Tech Career Repor!! Nuestro informe del sector de la tecnología a partir de las más de 100.000 awesómicas personas que confían en nosotros.
Big company & policy news 🤓
Samuel Hess, co-founder of German agency DRIP, published a breakdown of Zara’s ecommerce site: “I spent $500 and over 21 hours analyzing the site and compiled everything into a Figma file—including the good & bad, all backed by data from 2,500 A/B tests we ran”. You can access the Figma file here (password: ZaRaBr3akd0wn+)
Interesting reads 🤓
Luigi Mallardo, former CRO of Woffu, Whisbi, published “Enterprise SaaS GTM issues when growth is disappointing between 5 and 15 million in ARR. Therapy for a real “typical” story.”
Diego Recondo (Acurio Ventures) published “Raising a VC fund successfully in the current tough market: lessons learned and insights (part 2: executing)“