Dealflow.es #473: Tinybird launch week. Lots of public money for VCs. idealista's €150M dividend.
A weekly summary of everything that happened in the Spanish startup and tech investing ecosystem.
Last week and in collaboration with Dealroom and several other partners, we published the 2025 edition of the Spanish tech ecosystem report.
In the report we offer a comprehensive analysis of the Spanish startup landscape. The report highlights a slight rebound in funding, a growing number of deep tech startups, and an increase in international investor interest.
While the numbers for 2024 were not great, the first two quarters of 2025 have seen a significant increase in investment activity, which we hope will continue for the rest of the year.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Boostomer:
Tu CAC no para de subir, la retención cae y tu equipo de soporte no da abasto. No es casualidad.
Deja de improvisar y poner parches. Te ayudamos a escalar con estructura, eficiencia y una experiencia de cliente que realmente funciona. Con Boostomer, sumas equipos expertos listos para ejecutar desde el primer día.
Descarga gratis la checklist para afrontar los picos de postventa sin romper tu experiencia de cliente.
Contacta con nuestro equipo y cuéntanos tu caso
Startup funding news 💸
Abacum announced a $60M fresh capital raise just a few weeks ago. Cathay, who joined the round led by Scale Venture Partners, wrote about their investment here
Ocean Ecostructures, a Barcelona-based startup focused on regenerating marine biodiversity through eco-friendly underwater infrastructures, has raised €3M in a round led by Seven Seas Investment Fund
8Layers, a Madrid-based cybersecurity startup, has raised €1.5M in a round led by JME Ventures. 8Layers offers cloud identity threat detection and response
Physia, a Barcelona-based startup developing AI-powered patient management software for physiotherapists, has raised €300k
M&A 🎉
Idealista is preparing to pay a €150M special dividend to shareholders, including Cinven (70%), EQT (18%), and the founding team (12%), following strong EBITDA growth
Profile of Deporvillage’s exit: the Spanish online sports retailer was acquired by JD Sports for over €140M in 2021 during the e-commerce boom. The sale delivered historic returns—up to 113x—for early investors like SeedRocket, Cabiedes, and Samaipata. Founded in 2010, the company scaled rapidly post-COVID. Today, it has lost relevance within JD Sports, and its founders, who exited management early, retain only 1% of the business
Capchase, the revenue-based financing platform founded in Spain and headquartered in New York, has acquired Vartana, a U.S.-based startup that enables B2B vendors to offer flexible payment terms to their customers
VIKO, a digital marketing group based in Barcelona, has acquired Socialmood, a Madrid-based creative agency specializing in brand content and strategy
Investor & accelerator news 🚀
Public money initiatives:
The CDTI Innovación will manage nearly €2B in 2025 to boost R&D and startup investment in Spain. Its investment arm SICC Innvierte will deploy €800M via direct and fund-based investments in sectors like biotech, AI, climate tech, and aerospace. Additionally, €300M will go to the Innvierte Deep-Tech Tech Transfer fund, launched with the EIF, to support spin-offs and deeptech
The ICO has selected 11 funds to channel €850M from the Spanish Recovery Plan into green and business growth projects. In the VC and incubation categories, the funds chosen were: Adara, Antai, 4Founders, Archipelago Next, BCombinator, Demium and Faraday
Also, the IVF (Institut Valencià de Finances) has allocated €25M from its 'Capital Riesgo para el Crecimiento Sostenible' fund to seven VC and PE firms: Demium Capital, Successful Capital, Suma Capital, Side Capital, Draper B1, Moira Capital, and Oquendo Capital
Top US VC firms are increasingly relying on local scouts in Spain to spot early-stage opportunities, as reported by Expansión. Figures like Kintxo Cortés (Accel), Ignacio Moreno Pubul (a16z), Rika Christanto (Accel), Bruno Grandi (Sequoia) are a few examples
Acurio Ventures (formerly All Iron Ventures) shared updates on its international expansion strategy and LP development efforts in a recent post. After closing its third fund at €150M in 2024—55% from institutional LPs and 30% from outside Spain—the firm is doubling down on relationship-building with global investors
Spanish investors active abroad:
LifeX participated in the $12M Series A of Elfie
Batir a largo plazo al mercado es complicado, y poca gente lo consigue. Si además no tienes tiempo o conocimientos para invertir en bolsa, lo mejor que puedes hacer es utilizar Indexa Capital.
Startup news 💡
New startups, products & key features
Tinybird announced a ton of stuff last week. Real-time analytics for AI agets, OpenTelemtry Exporter, Windows Support, performance and infra improvements and a lot more. More details here
Pau Ramon, co-founder and former CTO of Factorial, recently launched Handinger, a no-code web data extraction platform designed to help users — including non-developers — extract and interact with content from websites and documents
Alén Space, a Galicia-based space tech startup, has successfully launched its Satmar satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The 6U nanosatellite will test the VDES communication standard to enhance maritime data exchange
Reental, together with PropHero and Core Capital, have launched a joint initiative to mobilize €120M and bring over 1,000 homes to market in the coming years. The first project, valued at €1.6M, is located in Serra (Valencia). Reental and Core Capital will handle financing and renovation, while PropHero will offer the finished properties to retail investors through its platform
Startup financials
Sequra, the Barcelona-based BNPL and embedded payments provider, expects to grow its revenue by 50% in 2025, reaching €135M—its third consecutive year of strong growth. The company processes over €1.3B in annual transaction volume and is profitable since 2016
Zeleros, the Spanish Hyperloop startup, has reached profitability for the first time and announced the launch of a new battery pack manufacturing plant in collaboration with several Basque companies
Profiles & other startup news
Cabify explained in a post and Twitter thread how it has redesigned its color palette with accessibility at its core, aiming to improve visual contrast and legibility across its digital products. The new palette ensures compliance with WCAG standards, enhancing usability for people with visual impairments
Onyze, a Spanish fintech specializing in digital asset infrastructure, has secured regulatory approval in Andorra to offer custody and trading services for cryptoassets
Tendios, a Barcelona-based startup using AI to streamline public procurement, helps businesses and governments manage tenders more efficiently and transparently. In just two years, it has optimized over 5,000 processes, cut prep time by 70%, and is already working with clients like Adif and Diputación de Barcelona
Orus, a French insurtech for SMBs, announced a new €25M Series B round and plans to further accelerate expansion in Spain
Big company & policy news 🤓
Meta is facing a criminal complaint in Spain from 29 former content moderators in Barcelona. The workers, subcontracted through CCC Barcelona Digital Services, claim they were exposed to extreme and traumatic content without proper training or psychological support, leading to severe mental health issues
Adolfo Domínguez has grown its online sales by 25.4% in FY 2024/25, reaching over €20M—15% of total revenue. The fashion brand reported €136.5M in total sales (+7.8%)
Adevinta’s Spanish business, which includes InfoJobs, Fotocasa, and Coches.net, is attracting interest from major PE firms Apax, EQT, and Hellman & Friedman, who are preparing bids that could value the unit at over €2B
Interesting reads 🤓
Profile of Fernando Domínguez, VP of SandboxAQ, who is leading business development for the AI + quantum computing startup from Málaga, after years at Google and Google X. Formerly the first non-developer engineer at SandboxAQ, he helped spin the company out of Google in 2022. Since then, it has raised over $500M from backers like T. Rowe Price, Eric Schmidt, and Alphabet itself
Alvaro Rojas (hyrise) published “Everything I wish I'd known about AI 6 months ago (as a non-technical founder)”
José del Barrio, co-founder of Samaipata and previously of La Nevera Roja, shared insights into his life in a personal interview
Iñáki Berenguer (LifeX) published “The New Playbook to Win in Traditional Industries: Rollups + Leapfrogging from Digital to AI-Native”
Paloma Barreiro wrote “Construir un banco en 9 meses”, about the story of B100, the neobank incubated by ABANCA
Expand To Spain published “One Agtech, one Biotech, Spanish early-stage, impact startups entering the global stage”
Oscar Macia, CEO of ForceManager, shares in this interview how building a close relationship with a potential acquirer helped shape the company’s exit strategy