Dealflow.es #443: Adara's new fund. Visma gets tugesto. Factorial & Red Point numbers.

A weekly summary of everything that happened in the Spanish startup and tech investing ecosystem.

Dec 02, 2024

Yoel and I are in the processo of expanding Dealflow to more countries. Meet Dealflow France 🇫🇷

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Startup funding news 💸

Barcelona-based Nanusens, a pioneer in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) chips using CMOS standards, is struggling to secure €10M needed to bring its technology to market. Despite raising €15M from investors like Inveready, Caixa Capital Risc, and AW Investment, the company was excluded from Spain’s PERTE del Chip funding. With headquarters in the UK since 2018 due to crowdfunding incentives, Nanusens is calling for government intervention to avoid losing its strategic technology to foreign buyers

"No hay voluntad política, solo pedimos encontrar una solución y que esta tecnología no se pierda o se venda a terceros países. Queremos volver (de UK), estamos hablando de un tema de soberanía estratégica, si falla el capital riesgo, el Gobierno debería involucrarse" - says Josep Montanyà (founder)

Valencia-based robotics company Ziknes raised €1M in a round led by Akka and Demium

San Sebastián-based CyberTIX secured €1M in a round led by Easo Ventures. The funds will enhance its simulation-based platforms that train cybersecurity professionals in real-world scenarios

Barcelona-based Vallfirest, a company specializing in wildfire prevention equipment, raised funding from Suma Capital. The size of the round was not disclosed. Founded in 2007, Vallfirest has 50 employees and did €15M in sales last year

Madrid-based OpenBrick, a platform specializing in real estate tokenization, received investment from BME (Bolsas y Mercados Españoles)

Healthcare giant Sanitas joined the latest funding round of Navarra-based MIMO Biosciences, a biotech company developing therapies for chronic diseases

Other rounds of funding:

Banbu: €300k, sustainable products brand
Click & Plan: €200k, real estate

M&A transactions 🎉

Norwegian software company Visma has acquired Tugesto, a Spanish payroll and HR software provider. The deal also marks Angels Capital’s exit from Tugesto. Visma has been quite active in recent years in Spain, having acquired Holded, Woffu, Declarando and Quaderno

Spanish IT consulting firm Babel is preparing for new acquisitions to fuel its global expansion, supported by Mubadala, the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund. The strategy follows Mubadala’s recent purchase of a majority stake in Babel, valuing the company at €350M

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

Adara Ventures, based in Madrid, is working to raise a new fund focused on early-stage investments in deep tech and B2B startups. Target size of €100M. This would be the 4th fund within Adara’s seed strategy. Adara is one of the few Spanish firms with several fund returners across multiple funds (Seedtag, AlienVault). Nico and Alberto, co-founders of the firm, recently appeared on our podKast

Alaluz Capital has unveiled ALX Firstech, a new fund targeting investments in early-stage tech startups. Target size of €24M. The fund aims to support companies in fields such as AI, robotics, and IoT

Spanish investors active abroad:

Ysios Capital invested in Danish biotech Adcendo, participating in its €128.5M Series B
BBVA Spark completed its first operation in Portugal by financing real estate data platform Casafari (€5M in venture debt)

Startup news 💡

Spanish unicorn Factorial, a provider of HR management software for SMEs, signed a few months ago an agreement with General Catalyst to cover up to 80% of its sales and marketing expenses over eight quarters, totaling $80M (€76M). According to Cinco Dias, the company saw revenues grow +110% to €25M in 2023, and losses rose by 42% to €44.7M due to workforce expansion

Red Points, specializing in brand protection and online counterfeit detection, grew its revenue by 12% in 2023 to €33.4M. Losses narrowed from €10.4M in 2022 to €6.96M. Red Points generates 55% of its revenue in the U.S. and remains backed by investors such as Mangrove (23%) and Northzone (18.7%)

16 years later, Spain’s Constitutional Court has upheld the acquittal of SeriesYonkis founders, marking the end of a high-profile case in online piracy. Despite pressures to overturn prior rulings, the decision reinforces the absence of criminal liability for linking to third-party content under earlier Spanish laws. This outcome has significant implications for digital rights and intellectual property legislation in Spain. Crazy:

“Durante el tiempo que ha durado este procedimiento, Alberto García Sola ha cursado estudios de posgrado, ha estado varios años impartiendo clases de informática en secundaria y ciclos formativos, se presentó a las oposiciones del Cuerpo Superior de Sistemas y Tecnologías de la Información de la Administración del Estado, accediendo a su puesto actual como funcionario (…), se ha casado, ha tenido tres hijos, y a uno de ellos casi no lo pudo ver nacer porque lo hizo el mismo día que su padre estaba sentado en el banquillo del Juzgado Penal 4 de Murcia”. Un “océano inabarcable de tiempo es lo que lleva este caso en la cabeza del acusado, condenado sin sentencia a pensar años y años en la espada de Damocles que tiene encima”. En concreto, de los 24 a los 40 años.

Freshly Cosmetics, the sustainable beauty brand co-founded in 2015 by Mireia Trepat, announced layoffs affecting 52 employees as part of an employment regulation plan (ERE). Despite the restructuring, the company reported €46.5M in revenue in 2023 and continues expanding with 18 stores and online sales in 36 countries. Trepat emphasizes the importance of maintaining majority ownership and balancing sustainability with commercial growth

Victor Ferrer, co-founder of Vuala, published “9 Takeaways on year 2 at Vuala”. Vuala is an app and API that enables automatic invoice extraction. Some facts that Victor highlights:

Spanish AI startup Maisa unveiled Vinci KPU, “the latest evolution of our AI Operating System, built to tackle multi-action resolutions”. Maisa is the brainchild of David Villalon (Voicemod, Clibrain) and Manuel Romero (Clibrain)

Rever is expanding its return management services to Germany, Benelux, and Portugal. The company recently signed an agreement to manage the returns of TikTok Shop

Peoople, now integrated with 21Buttons, has rebranded as a platform to enhance the organic positioning of brands

Menéame, the social bookmarking platform, has paused its sale and is transitioning to a new operational model inspired by Jot Down. The current CEO of Jot Down will lead the company in this new phase

Oscar Pierre faces trial amid Glovo’s legal challenges. Pierre, co-founder of Glovo, will appear in court on December 3, facing a potential six-year prison sentence for alleged labor violations related to the company’s pre-2021 gig economy model.

Glovo has won six labor-related cases in Spanish courts, overturning €21.4M in fines tied to its pre-2021 gig worker model. The rulings, based on EU precedents, validate Glovo’s prior operational model, where riders were treated as independent contractors. Also, Glovo has been ordered to provide an additional €4M guarantee to delay payment of fines related to labor law violations. The penalties stem from misclassification of workers. Also last week, Italy’s antitrust authority has fined Foodinho, Glovo’s local subsidiary, €5M for violating workers’ privacy rights

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Big company & policy news 🤓

Íñigo Barea, head of Just Eat Spain, has expressed disbelief over the ongoing use of “false self-employment” in the food delivery sector. Referring to the 2021 rider law and Supreme Court rulings, he urged competitors to comply with regulations

“La tokenización de activos llega a España: las gestoras ya podrán vender fondos en ‘blockchain”: The Spanish securities regulator (CNMV) has approved its first European Registered Information Repository (ERIR) to facilitate asset tokenization. The move sets a precedent for integrating blockchain technologies into Spain’s financial markets

TechCrunch wrote a post on the “three incoming EU lawmakers in charge of key tech policy areas”, featuring Spaniard Teresa Ribera Rodríguez

TikTok has introduced its Shop feature in Spain, enabling businesses and creators to sell products directly through the app

Interesting reads 🤓

Ivan Martinez Toro, co-founder of Spanish startup Zylon (on-prem private AI for the enterprise), wrote a post about the BBVA and OpenAI relationship that was highlighted last week by Bloomberg. BBVA is a significant customer of OpenAI and thousands of the bank employees use ChatGPT on a daily basis. Iván says that:

“BBVA adoption of OpenAI's ChatGPT speeds up its AI journey, but undermines its technological independence and compromises data privacy. (…) But they've taken a risky shortcut in their AI adoption strategy. (…) I am confident that BBVA's ChatGPT usage adheres to GDPR regulations. Nevertheless, I worry that these 3,000 ChatGPT licenses distributed among BBVA employees handle my financial data responsibly as it will be crossing borders and becoming duplicated in multiple databases along the way”

Javi Santana, co-founder of Tinybird, published “Learnings after 4 years working with +50 companies on data engineering projects”

Jose de Cabo, co-founder of Remotely Works, wrote a post about how they approach pricing at the startup

Ana Asuero, CPO at Citibox, published “Los pre-mortem: cuando pensar como un gafe te ayuda a mitigar riesgos”

Daniel Gonvalvez published a map with the location of VC firms within Madrid

Luis Garay, partner at Samaipata, published “El futuro de la tecnología en Europa: reflexiones sobre cómo Europa puede relanzar su competitividad”

Simon Muñoz published “¿Por qué alguien recién salido de la universidad querría ser Product Manager?”

Adigital and EsTech have introduced the “National Plan for Scalability” to support the growth of Spanish scaleups and strengthen their role in Europe’s tech ecosystem