Good morning & happy Monday! And now we pause for a Public Service Announcement:

We generally stay focused on tech as much as possible, but Covid-19 cases in Barcelona have increased by 81% since last week and the Catalan government has now made masks mandatory in public. Please wear a mask.

Ok PSA over, there's plenty of tech news this week, including:

• Is Alibaba going to buy Glovo?

• TravelPerk acquiring a COVID data startup

• Google and the Spanish Industry Ministry are launching a new digitalization program

Read all the details & more below.

Have a great week and take care of yourselves!

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Barcelona biotech startup DeepUll closes a €3.5M investment round

• Catalan online gaming startup Champion Games lands €1M

• Barcelona Banking-as-a-Platform startup HUBUC gets €350K

Barcelona Startup news

• Chinese giant Alibaba is rumoured to be negotiating an acquisition of Glovo according to Crónica Global

• TravelPerk buys Covid-19 data startup Albatross

• Cooltra plans be profitable by 2021 and become the first ridesharing industry player to achieve this

• Uber integrates the services of the Catalan startup Social Car

• Nomo, a Banco Sabadell startup aimed at freelancers, has already acquired 40K users this year

• Incapto Coffee launches coffee subscription service

• eDreams revenues fell by 1% to reach €529M for Apr 2019-Mar 2020 period

Spanish investment news

• Madrid-based firm Scalefast raises €19.5M in Series B funding

• Madrid logistic tech startup GOI gets €17M

• Galician biotech startup Origo Biopharma nets €2.3M

• San Sebastián biotech VIVEbiotech gets €1M

• Valencia travel startup Passporter receives €900K

• Galician fintech startup Livetopic lands €500K

• Valencia propech startup Designable gets €488K

VC, investment & crowdfunding news:

• Nauta launches 5th fund with a €120M first close, announces investment in UK contextual intelligence platform NumberEight

• Barcelona VC firm Ysios Capital participates as lead investor in €32M funding Series B of Dutch startup Varmx

• Oryzon Universal and Xarta Capital join forces to support sports startups

• K Fund launches K Founders, a new investment program for startups that are less than six months old

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories:

• SeedRocket presents 12 finalists and two invitees of its latest edition; most startups are from Barcelona

• Fundacion Repsol announces the 9 finalists for 9th edition its acceleration program

• Fundacion MAPFRE selects 9 social innovation projects

• Z-Cube opens call for 4th edition of its Open Accelerator program for health startups; apply until 20th of July

• Impact EdTech opens call for startups & SMBs focused on remote teaching; apply until 3rd of September

• Sacyr opens call for 3rd edition of Sacyr iChallanges, the firms open innovation program; apply until 10th of September

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews:

• Aviate: online school for cancer patients

• Droplite: lab-on-a-chip technology for rapid and accurate testing of key health conditions

• Mr. Wonderful: the Catalan couple who makes €30M thanks to good vibes

Tech News

• Barcelona and Catalonia, recognized as Europe’s 2nd best strategy to attract foreign investment in technology sector

• Catalan firm Grifols starts production of pioneering treatment for Covid-19 using plasma from recovered patients

Tech news in Spain:

• Google and the Spanish Industry Ministry launch new program to boost digitalization of SMBs

• Iberdrola pockets €800M to drive renewable growth in Spain

• Banco Santander enters car subscription market following its acquisition of coches.com

• Telefónica invests in US firm Nozomi Networks, a leading company in OT and IoT security

• Spanish government approves takeover bid by the Cinven, KKR and Providence funds for MasMovil

• El Corte Inglés launches free same-day delivery service

• El Corte Inglés is also looking at setting up their own online logistics operator

• Mercadona introduces face-recognition system in its supermarkets

• Amazon and DIA to expand Prime Services to Sevilla, after already being active in Barcelona, Madrid & Valencia 

Politics, Legal & Economics

• Spanish tax authorities are investigating Uber for potential €5M tax fraud case

• Ministry of Labor reports that there are still problems with ERTE payments in Spain

• 4,8% of business in Spain believe they will probably have to close in the coming months according to latest survey

• Spanish GDP fell by 5.2% in Q1 2020

Good Reads

• Impact investors to know in the European startup ecosystem

• "Why invest?", by Jordi Altimira

• CMI Report: Effects of the Covid crisis on the Private Equity funds activity in Spain

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Interview with Sisco Sapena, founder and president of Lleida.Net

• Interview with Francesc Julià Ametller, managing director at Kave Home

• Interview with Sonia Fernandez, Partner at Kibo Ventures

Great Events

This Week:

• Tue, 14 Jul @13:00: IQS Tech Factory Talk Series: Nicolas Avril, VP Europe at Dragon Innovation (an Avnet company)

• Tue, 14 Jul @18:00: Startup Grind Barcelona: How to transition from senior developer to CTO, with Rob De Feo (AWS) 

• Wed, 15 July @11:00: Multiscan: from Startup to an internationalized company

• Thu, 16 Jul @18.30: America Flying to The Future

Next Week:

• Tue, 21 Jul @19:30: PitchSLAP – Live Pitching Event

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