Hello and happy Monday!

Today's main headlines:

• BCN 12th-best city for high-tech FDI 🏆

• US firm plans €100M data center in Catalonia 🏗️

• Wallbox grows revenue by 266% 📈

Building Barcelona's Fintech Ecosystem

Not-so-short intro today focused on fintech which we're very big fans of. Barcelona is home to not just big banks but also lots of excellent fintech startups such as Kantox, Verse or Unnax. However, we're also always interested in helping create the next big ones.

That's why we've been collaborating with F10 - a global innovation ecosystem - as mentors to support their Barcelona incubation program aimed at fintech and insurtech projects for what is now the second year in a row. Having met their current batch, we can assure you they're all great guys with exciting companies. So you definitely don't want to miss checking them out during Demo Day which is taking place on 31 Mar. You can sign up for free here.

But that's not all. Behind the scenes, we're also secretly planning with Elliott Locke - yep, you might remember him from the great content he produced for us here or his own fintech startup abroaden - to launch a fintech event series in Barcelona. The idea is to bring the Barcelona fintech community closer together to learn and grow. We've literally just initiated this last week so if you have any ideas (a cool event name, potential speakers, ...), want to help (volunteer, sponsor, ...) or be involved, let us know. We'd love to hear from you. Just reach out to Elliott or Clemens or drop us an email here.

Have a great week & take care! 🌻

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Healthtech Mowoot obtain patent and secure a €1M+ Series A

• Sycai Medical closes €780K for its early cancer detection software 

• Glovo buys Portuguese startup Kitch, its 5th acquisition in 7 months

Barcelona startup news

• Wallbox announces strong Q4 and 2021 financial results, including a 266% increase in sales to reach $86.5M

• SME insurtech SingularCover grows revenues by 84% in 2021 to reach €865K, aims to reach €2M in sales this year

• Fintech Nomo, an all-in-one tool for freelancers and SMEs, eyes expansion to France, Italy and Germany in 2023

• Computer vision firm AllRead wins award by "Puertos del Estado"

• TalentFY & other startups launch campaign to help Ukrainian IT professionals

• TravelPerk’s Avi Meir to stop angel investment in ES entities until red tape cuts down

Spanish investment news

• Madrid logitech firm Trucksters’ funding round now up to €14.3M

• Valencian HR platform Sesame HR land €10M

• Madrid-based inventor marketplace LastBasic open a €2M investment round 

• Navarrese biotech firm Medibiofarma secure €1.2M

• Alicante healthtech startup Fixtoe raise €500K

• Spanish foodtech newcomers Arroces la Bomba close €437K first round

• Madrid traveltech startup Transparent acquired by London-based OTA Insight

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Carlos Gomez from 7r Ventures launches new fractional ownership proptech Vivla

• Fellow Funders enters the eco cleaning sector with a new €1.2M round

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Attico Lab open call for their 4th accelerator edition; apply until April 10th 

• BCN’s US Consulate & Foment del Treball launch another edition of the online training program “Academy for Women Entrepreneurs” (AWE); apply until April 18th

• ISE Open Innovation Challenge, a B2B international meetings event, is looking for 8 corporations providing new technologies/solutions; apply until April 29th 

• IESE forms a school for entrepreneurs with founders of Privalia, Cooltra & Holaluz; the course begins this July

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews:

• Maite Fibla Gasparin: co-founder and managing partner of Ship2B on impact investing and impact washing

• Pedro Espinosa: Co-founder of emotional well-being SaaS Emocional

• Outbound People: Unique sales profiles for SaaS B2B startups

• Xavier Pladellorens: CEO and founder of Deporvillage

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona:

• Barcelona ranked 12th in high-tech FDI, 44th in innovation and 59th in terms of talent according to latest JLL report "Innovation Geographies Resilience and recovery"; insights on other Spanish regions can be found here

• US firm Panattoni will invest €100M in the largest data center in Catalonia

• It’s confirmed: Spotify will be the main sponsor of FC Barcelona & the stadium will be renamed Spotify Camp Nou 

• - Spotify’s stocks are already up as a result

• BarcelonaTech & UB team with German research institute to form a spin-off company selling an innovative stent device 

• ICMAB-CSIC researchers also formed a medtech spin-off, Molecular Gate, to improve pharmaceutical security 

Tech & big company news in Spain:

• Meta to create 2K jobs in Spain & support innovation with a massive new data center

• Uber report Glovo to the government for not complying with the Rider Law

• HP to open a new R&D center in Valencia 

• Orange and MasMovil in talks to merge in a €19.6B deal

• Amazon’s Lab126 arrives in Spain, creating up to 100 jobs 

• Repsol and Telefonica form a 50/50 venture to advance solar energy self-consumption

• Telefónica Tech & València Marina digitize electricity and water supply to create a port 4.0 

Politics, Legal & Economics

• Mayor of Barcelona to ban new warehouses & ghost kitchens resulting from the rise in food delivery companies

• Adevinta's new report reveals insights into how Covid has changed Spain’s digital economy 

Good Reads

• Unicornesses to-be; Spanish unicorn candidates with female tech founders

• These are the 165 investors who could put money into your startup

• Ecosystem Insights: a database & visualization tool to understand the Spanish startup ecosystem

• Deep dive with Ander Michelena of All Iron Ventures & previously Ticketbis: Scaling an e-commerce from 0 to $100M+ 

• How to get the most out of your local startup community

• Launching a remote startup – the essential guide

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Do startups hiring ethical advisory boards avoid Big Tech’s big mistakes? & more (EN)

• Is the AR and VR market only for trillion-dollar companies? (EN)

• Foc a Terra (new Catalan tech podcast) reflect on MWC (CT)

• Life on Mars chats to Guillem Vila of Ocado about hiring developers for startups vs corporates & more (ES)

• Interview with David Martín of Girona-based sportstech Tradeinn (ES)

• Interview with Marc Coloma of Heura Foods (ES)

• Interview with Clara Navarro, social entrepreneur & co-founder of Ship2B (ES)

Great Events

This week:

• Tue, 22 Mar @09:30: IBM Technology Summit

• Tue, 22 Mar @19:00: Open Coffee Startup Networking. Open conversations about startup life & fun 

• Thu, 24 Mar @18:30: Startup Grind Mataró hosts Ricard Jornet (Business Angel & President @ Som Mobilitat)

• Thu, 24 Mar @18:30: Startup Talk & Networking: “Women on Blockchain, removing the barriers”

• Thu, 24 Mar @18:00: Google Analytics: what’s happening in France? 35 minutes with Rubén Gallardo

Upcoming:

• Thu, 31 Marc @10:00: F10 Spain Demo Day - Incubation Program Batch II

• Thu, 31 Mar @18:00: March Afterwork @ Pier01 by Tech Barcelona

• 26-28 Jun: European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona

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

Jobs

• OneCoWork is on the lookout for a Community Associate

• Opticks is recruiting a Sales Development Representative - French Market

• Touchstream is hiring a Technical Product Manager (OTT Video Monitoring Tools)

• OneRagTime is looking for a Venture Ecosystem Catalyst

• BitPanda is hiring a Head of Referral Marketing

• Heura is looking for a Content Development and Thought-Leadership Manager

• Netcentric is looking for several IT positions