Dealflow.es #511: Freepik is Magnific, hits $230M ARR. Fence raised $20M. Visma acquired Bilky. ElevenLabs opens Madrid office.
A weekly summary of everything that happened in the Spanish startup and tech investing ecosystem.
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Startup funding news 💸
Madrid and NYC-based Fence raised a $20M Series A led by Galaxy Ventures to accelerate its real-time infrastructure for asset-backed finance. Other investors in the round are ParaFi Capital and Crane Venture Partners. Fence was co-founded by Juan Montero and Ignacio Rosario
TietAI, a Madrid-based company that develops an AI platform for hospital operations, closed a €2.5M seed round led by Plus Partners and JME Ventures
Impetux, a University of Barcelona spin-off developing advanced photonics instrumentation for life sciences, closed a €2.5M funding round led by Bullnet Capital
Sateliot launched a €100M Series C funding round to deploy its 5G satellite constellation. Sateliot has six satellites in orbit and expects to launch five more in 2026, backed by €270M in pre-contracts across 60 countries
M&A news 🎉
Amadeus will acquire French biometrics firm Idemia Public Security (IPS) from Advent International for €1.2B in cash (plus up to €150M earn-out). Amadeus aims to embed biometric identity across the full travel journey, from booking to boarding to border control. IPS has 3,300 employees, 600+ clients and generated €711M revenue with €112M EBITDA in 2025 (9.8x 2026E EBITDA). Closing expected mid-2027.
Norwegian software giant Visma acquired Málaga-based Bilky, a business management platform connecting accountants, companies, and employees. The acquisition marks Visma’s 8th investment in Iberia and 6th in Spain
Seaya acquired a majority stake in baby food company Smileat through its Andromeda fund. Smileat generated €21M in revenue in 2025 with €2M+ EBITDA
Startup news 💡
Amazing stuff from Freepik. I mean… Magnific. Freepik is rebranding as Magnific (the AI startup it acquired in 2024 for €20M+ co-founded by Javi Lopez and Emilio Nicolas. Javilop wrote about the launch here) and has hit $230M ARR with 1M+ paying subscribers, roughly 2x in 18 months. AI suite revenue tripled YoY. Freepik positions itself as a model-agnostic creative production layer, aggregating third-party AI models rather than building its own. EQT (52.9% since 2020) is past its typical 5-year hold, so it will be interesting to see what happens next. More details about the changes here
ElevenLabs, the voice AI unicorn ($11B valuation, $430M ARR), is opening a Madrid office with ~20 hires across engineering and sales. The company also announced that Banco Santander has joined as investor. More info about the launch here and here
Several Spanish startups are among 21 European startups that VCs recommended as ones to watch in this Techcrunch article: Theker, HappyRobot, Cala, PLD Space and Multiverse
Bit2Me CEO Leif Ferreira discussed the company’s expansion challenges in Italy and Portugal, calling the market penetration more difficult than expected
Revolut will open its first-ever physical store near Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona by late 2026 or early 2027
Bihar Batteries and NX Technologies announced a partnership to accelerate European deployment of sodium-ion batteries for commercial energy storage. Bihar, founded in 2023, aims to start product sales by late 2026. The company was co-founded by Sebastián Fernández-Medrano (Samaipata, Komon) and Alberto Cendoya
Multiplo Capital received authorization from CNMV as a financial advisory company. The AI-powered fintech, backed by Antai Ventures and ex-executives from BBVA, Fidelity, and Fintonic, offers wealth management through financial aggregation. After three months, it manages over €20M in AUM. More info here
Skyboria, a Madrid-based drone startup developing civil and military drones with 500kg cargo capacity, plans to raise around €1M in 2027. The company expects to complete product design this year and begin mass production in 2027, with interest from clients in Chile, Greece, Italy, and Spain
Profile of Waabi, the Canadian autonomous driving startup founded by Pamplona-born engineer Raquel Urtasun, which just raised $1B. The company is developing "physical AI" for both autonomous trucks and robotaxis
Tech investor news 🚀
We (Kfund) launched the fundraising process of KFounders Preseed II, our new ~€20M pre-seed fund. The vehicle continues the strategy from our 1st pre-seed fund, which backed 40 companies (70%+ from outside Spain), including Enginy, Quiver, Complaion, Nilo and 2501. Initial tickets of ~€300K targeting early-stage tech founders with global ambition
LifeX Ventures launched Life Extension Fund II EU, targeting €70M to invest in European life sciences and longevity startups
Seaya welcomed Rika Christanto (formerly of LifeX and Idoven) as Partner and Co-Head of Ventures
Spanish investors active abroad:
Tether led a $14M Series A round for Argentine crypto platform Belo, alongside Spanish fund The Venture City
Big company & policy news 🏦
Bizum launches contactless NFC payments in physical stores on May 18, bypassing Visa/Mastercard rails entirely. Money moves via instant bank transfer directly from buyer to merchant
A Madrid court ordered Cloudflare to block pirate football streaming sites including Roja Directa and PirloTV, following a lawsuit by LaLiga and Movistar Plus+. The judge also summoned Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince to testify — he didn't show.The company called LaLiga's complaint "an abuse of the system."
Merlin Properties presented its data center transformation plan at its AGM, targeting 730 megawatts across País Vasco, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisboa and Zaragoza by 2032. Merlin will invest €7.84B in the initiative
Interesting reads 🤓
Jose Ramon Perez Agüera (Mercadona Tech) published “Cómo construimos nuestro buscador en Mercadona Tech (y cómo construir el tuyo)”. More about it here
Juan Luis Hortelano (Blinkfire, Startup Valencia) published “IA y salud: siete días para un prototipo, diez años para un producto”
Antonio Herranz (Director of Global AI Transformation at Banco Santander) published “La paradoja de los 2,5 billones: por qué las empresas invierten más que nunca en IA y obtienen menos de lo que esperan“
Philippe Gelis (Kantox) wrote “Slow Capital: A Philosophy for Building Wealth That Lasts”
Podcasts of the week 🎧
SeedRocket interviewed Andreu Dotti (Innovamat)
Marsbased interviewed Ricard Clau