Good morning, we hope you had a nice weekend and enjoyed some much needed time outside.

For the moment, let's all enjoy some good news on the COVID-19 front as Spain starts lifting restrictions and announced plans to (hopefully) get back to a 'new normal' by end of June.

Have a great week and take care of yourselves.

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Catalan secure file exchange startup Tranxfer gets €1M

• Barcelona-based personal assistant Meyo lands €600K

Barcelona Startup news

• Plant-based food startup Heura sees 450% growth in past year

• Wallbox' bidirectional charger Quasar selected as finalist for Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards

Spanish investment news

• Madrid startup ANYVERSE closes a €3M investment round led by Bullnet Capital and Inveready

• La Coruña-based startup Appentra receives €1.8M

• Madrid-based Tucuvi raises €160K via La Bolsa Social

VC, investment & crowdfunding news:

• Wayra observing a 40% decrease in valuations and forecast a slowdown of investment rounds and M&As of portfolio firms

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories:

• 15 international startups will develop innovative projects thanks to ICEX Rising Up in Spain

• Overview of the 5 startups selected for Conector BCN 13

• SeedRocket launches Campus de Emprendedores for post-covid-19 world; you can apply until 17th of May

• BCC opens call for Culinary Action! Accelerator; startups can apply until May 18th 

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews:

• Broomx: CMO Ignasi Capellà talks about immersive projectors, how COVID-19 has affected the company and how they're trying to make the most of the current situation

• Bigle Legal: transforming the way companies manage legal documents

• Citibeats: transforming people's opinions at scale into data you can use to solve problems faster

Tech News

• Catalan researchers help identify a drug that blocks the effects of SARS-Co-V2

• Japanese automotive Nissan begins respirator production in Barcelona plant

• A Barcelona hospital is testing RFID-based hand washing-based access control

Tech news in Spain:

• Motosharing companies resume their activity with special measures

• CaixaBank becomes the first Spanish bank to develop risk classification model using quantum computing

• Asterion buys Telefónica’s radiolink portfolio

• Carrefour introduces video call service to take orders and respond to querries

• Lockdown forces Spain's property market to modernise

• Real Betis and Sorare team up to bring football to the world of blockchain

Politics & Economics

• Spanish economy records a 5.2% contraction in first quarter of 2020, the biggest decline since 1970

• Bank of Spain predicts the economy to shrink by 12.4% this year in worst-case scenario, but also notes it expects a rebound of 8.5% growth next year

Good Reads

• Overview of support measures for startups affected by COVID-19 across Europe, including the very few measures available to Spanish startups

• Spanish startups looking for more support

• Experts share their view on the challenge of raising capital during COVID-19

• There aren’t sector-specific startup hubs in Europe. Here’s the data

• Are Covid-19 and Spanish FashionTech changing your wardrobe forever?

• No office, no investors, no worries - six years of learnings

Good Videos & Podcasts

• How Priscilla Lavoie, Managing Director at Demium Barcelona, is coping with covid

• Interview with Marta Frenna CEO at Greyhounders (by Demium)

• Interview with Luigi Mallardo, former VP of sales at Whisbi (by SeedRocket)

Great Events

• Mon-Fr, 4-8 May: IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech & Signal Processing

• Tue, 5 May @18:00: Startup Grind BCN hosts Adam Lasri (Senior Associate @ Atomico)

• Wed, 6 May @12:00: Agility, UX & efficient feedback loops. Product stories from Leroy Merlin & Groupon

• Wed, 6 May @12:00: How to Deliver the Perfect Pitch

• Thu, 7 May @11:00: Startup Grind BCN hosts Santi Casas (CEO @ Validated ID)

• Thu, 7 May @17:00: How to build disruptive products and user research with Telenor and Booking.com

See the full event calendar here & add your event here.

Startup Jobs In Barcelona

• Vocdoni is hiring a remote Front-End Developer (Flutter Development)

• Wallbox is recruiting a Content Writer

• Hector Kitchen is hiring a Senior Full-Stack Developer

• Unnax is recruiting a Digital Designer

See the full job board here & add your job post here.