Hello and happy Monday,

Today's main headlines:

• Intel & Semrush to open hubs in BCN 🔬

• Largest ever crypto fund launched at €4.2B 💸

• Luxury student housing to be built in 22@ 🏢

The BCN FinTech community has a new home!

First, a massive thank you to everyone who came to the inaugural BCN FinTech Afterwork last Wednesday. Despite the drizzle, this sold-out event had a fantastic turnout and was a great kick-off to bring the local fintech community together. Prestalo’s Kristoffer Hanson was an inspiring first speaker, too.

We’re planning 3 more events this year (in July, September, and November) – details to be confirmed soon so keep an eye on this newsletter as well as our hosts OneCoWork.

Finally, in light of #001’s roaring success, we're now looking for sponsors, speakers, collaborators, and feedback to make each event better than the last. If you’re interested, all you have to do is fill in this short form.

Here's to many more FinTech Afterworks! 🤝

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Proptech flexible living platform Ukio raise €2.5M

• E-commerce returns startup Rever get €1M and will expand in Europe & UK this year

• Traveltech startup 51Trips exceeds crowdfunding target & raises €380K

Barcelona startup news

• Glovo cuts dozens of jobs abroad over Zoom months after acquisition of Foodpanda 

• Gorillas leaves Barcelona; looking for a local partner to continue in Spain

• eCommerce logistics startup Kubbo begins international expansion by launching in Italy

• Ethical AI pioneers Citibeats to open first office outside Spain in the US

• Fintech firm Unnax wins award for its Crypto-as-a-Service solution

• Tropicfeel’s Shell travel bag among winners of ISPO awards, which crown pinoeering sports products

• Foodtech startup Remy Robotics launches third autonomous robotic kitchen in BCN

• The 5 winners of the first-ever BCN FemTech awards for tech projects led by women 

• Leading German HR-tech startup Personio will expand into Barcelona 

Spanish investment news

• Seville-based restaurant booking platform CoverManager receive €35M

• Madrid-based fintech enterprise Bnext get an extra €4.2M

• Malagan virtual reality innovators OWO Game close €1M round

• Palma-founded car rental forum offUgo land €600K led by Sabadell

• Malagan tokenized eMobility platform Zeemcoin raise its first €500K

• Valencian mortgage-auction fintech Colibid close €500K convertible note

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Andreessen Horowitz launches largest ever €4.2B crypto fund

• Polkadot launches €230M stablecoin fund

• BCN’s Grow VP opens first €5.5M fund for deeptech startups

• Carmen Rico & Anthony Danon launch Cocoa Ventures, a new VC fund that acts like an angel

• Mahou San Miguel launches BarLab Ventures to promote innovators in the food & beverage sector

• New report by European Women in VC reveals only 10% of GPs are women & only 1.1% of European investment wen to all-women founded startups

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Zinemaldia Startup Challenge opens 4th call for Europe-wide audiovisual sector startups; apply until June 3

• Adinberri, Rural Kutxa & BerriUp launch the Silver Economy Call, aimed at projects aiming to improve quality of life for the elderly; apply until June 5 

• Last call for Stage 2’s accelerator for industrial startups in the pre-production phase; apply until June 5

• F10’s latest fintech & insurtech accelerator deadline has been extended; apply until June 5

• Start Social opened Grow Track, an acceleration project to boost and support existing EU social enterprises; apply until June 10

• EIT food seeks women entrepreneurs steering businesses or projects in the agri-food sector; apply until June 13

• Sportboost & Wayra have already attracted 120 startups to their sportstech investment program

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews:

• Assembler Institute: better than a bootcamp & more practical than university

• Blunblow: haute couture hair accessories gaining speed

• Óscar Torres: Founder and Director of ESADE Executive Education B2B Management Program & JustB2B

• Oriol Pascual Moya-Angeler: Founder of new industrial tech accelerator Stage2

• Unibo: the neobank for real estate professionals

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona:

• Intel to open €400M microchip lab in Barcelona Supercomputing Center

• US giant Semrush to open new BCN hub after recently acquiring local startup Kompyte

• Swiss medtech firm Ypsomed chooses Barcelona for its first R&D center outside Switzerland

• Real estate investment firm Hines to open first residence in Spain: luxury student housing in 22@

• Microsoft reinforces its first Spanish R&D center in Barcelona with new vacancies for AI, ML & Data Science specialists

• New scheme will rely on digital twin for the future of Barcelona city planning

Tech & big company news in Spain:

• Másmóvil and Orange are clinging to Digi's immense growth to loosen pressure from Europe

• Intidex (Zara, Pull&Bear etc) to start charging for online returns; but the answer is in tech solutions 

• Bit2me launches CryptoTour initiative to turn Spain into the world’s crypto benchmark 

• Telefónica Tech reinforces its US presence with a new virtual data center in Virginia 

Politics, Legal & Economics

• Spain hits Google with a €10M fine for serious breaches of the EU’s GDPR

• Spanish government to spend €12.25B on the microchip industry

Good Reads

• Opticks Security’s 2022 ad fraud report: Everything advertisers should know

• Introducing Living Assets–NFTs Beyond Collectibles, by Alun Evans from Freeverse.io

• Investing in the financial system of the future today

• YC advises founders to ‘plan for the worst’ amid market teardown

• Presentation by Sequoia on how your tech company can prepare for the hard times ahead 

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Is the crypto bubble bursting, or is it just growing pains? (EN)

• 15 interviews from the floor of the EU-Startups Summit in Barcelona (EN)

• Save your startup during an economic downturn by Y Combinator (EN)

• Interview with Sara Gozalo, lead music label tech operations at YouTube (ES)

• Interview with Pau Garcia-Milà, entrepreneur and cofounder of Ideafoster and Founderz (ES)

• Freeverse: the future of the metaverse with Toni Mateos and Alun Evans (ES)

• Foc a Terra chat about the work of the future and the best ways to prepare for it (CT)

Great Events

This week:

• Wed, 1 Jun @19:00: Masterclass: Create and launch an artificial intelligence product without programming

• Wed, 1 Jun & Thu, Jun 2: Lead Today, Shape Tomorrow: Europe’s leading event for female entrepreneurship

• Thu, 2 Jun @10:00: Wayra Startup Innovation Summit

• Thu, 2 Jun @18:30: How to build and manage a world-class team of UX Writers

Upcoming:

• Wed, 6 Jun - Fri, 8 Jun: ETH Barcelona: Spain’s first Ethereum conference

• Tue, 7 Jun @15:30: The Capchase Cup: 5-a-side football & networking for SaaS founders and VC 

• Tue, 7 Jun @19:00: Open Coffee Startup Networking

• Tue, 7 Jun @19:00: Belgian tech Networking Night

• Thu, 9 Jun @17:00: How to Succeed with a Pitch with Martina Guzmán & Aticco 

• Fri, 10 Jun @14:30: Women in Tech Barcelona: 2022 Global Impact Summit

• 26-28 Jun: European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona

• 13 Jul: BCN FinTech Afterwork #002

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

Jobs

• Bourbon Creative is hiring a Freelance Content Writer (Native English, 100% remote)

• OneCoWork is looking for a Junior Accountant

• Opticks is recruiting a:

• - Sales Development Representative - Spanish Market

• - Implementation Specialist

• Riverbed Technology is hiring a Digital Sales Representative - Dutch Speaking

• Frizbit is looking for multiple Sales positions

• FirstDerm is recruiting roles for sales, marketing, product & tech

• Netcentric is looking for several IT positions