Hello and happy Monday!

Today's main headlines:

• Holaluz bags €11.4M

• US firm sets up tech hub in Barcelona

• Jack Ma visits Spain

Good news - there is no long monologue or rant from me this week 🙅‍♂️. Instead, I just want to take a moment to share some love for Barcelona startup hub Itnig. The guys over there are doing an excellent job and their podcast, which features awesome entrepreneurs, is pretty much a must-listen every single week (which is why they regularly make it into our newsletter). Their latest edition features an outstanding two-part episode where they speak to Oscar Pierre from Glovo. I highly recommend you to scroll down to our Good Videos and Podcasts section and 🎧 tune in.

👉 Barcinno is looking for you (blockchain startups)!

We’re currently looking to identify the best Barcelona blockchain startups for an article we’re working on. So if you are one or know a cool one that should be included, please just drop us a message here. Thanks for your help :)

Have a great week!

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Powertech company Holaluz receives an investment of €11.4M

• Insurtech company Vitaance closes a €3M financing round to boost its growth

• Insurtech firm Weecover closes a €2.3M round led by nauta capital

• Short term reservation space Spathios closes a € 370K round in less than a month and prepares the next

Barcelona startup news

• Wallbox and EGAT team up to help get 1.2M EVs on the road in Thailand by 2036

• Glovo inaugurates its technological hub in Madrid to develop improvements in its application

• Travel-tech firm Caravelo announces that Alex Cruz, ex-CEO of Vueling and British Airways, has joined them as investor and board member

• Community fintech start-up 11Onze appoints ex-Amazon, Glovo leader as CTO

• Elma featured on 18 insurtech startups to watch list on sifted

• Biotech company Bluephage among 3 Spanish companies triumph in the final of the EIT awards

• Magonis and De Antonio 50 crowned winners at 3rd edition of Nautic Tech

• Business apartment firm Caterina wants to operate 500 long-stay apartments by 2025

• Factorial has a completed a brand refresh & shares how they did it

Spanish investment news

• Basque firm Multiverse Computing closes a € 10M investment round

• Sevilla-based Clever Global gets € 2M

• Navarra-based MOA Foodtech lands €1.5M

• Madrid re-commerce platform Hamelyn nets €1M

• Basque firm Ecomagnet closes an investment round of €700K

• Madrid proptech Clikalia receives an investment of €450M

• Asturias-based Capri Bikes closes a €250K round

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Azimut & Gellify launch €43M VC fund to support MENA startups

• CDTI allocates €37.5M to 68 business R&D&I projects

• Private capital investment in Spain reached €4,8B in Q3 2021, 18.4% more than a year ago

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Madrid-based Legalshelter is the first incubator of legaltech startups in the national legal sector

• Porcinnova Advisory Council chooses 8 projects for the third round of the program

• Pfizer Foundation opens the call for Innomakers4Health; apply until 21 Nov

• EIT Community Booster opens call for European digital startup; apply until 17 Dec

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews:

• Barcelona and partners: Angel Garcia and the new investment agency launched in 2021

• Cocunat: profile of Sara Werner, co-founder of cosmetics DTC startup

• Deale: the marketplace to buy and sell SMBs

• Opticks: fighting ad fraud in all its forms

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona:

• Catalan nanotechnology sector features 107 firms that generate sales totalling €430M & create 779 jobs

• US firm The Knot Worldwide to set up its technology hub in Barcelona

• Healthtech company Grifols partners with Egypt to inaugurate the first African plasma-supply platform in Cairo

• Robert Fabregat named new general director of Biocat

• PUZZLE X event in Barcelona takes frontier materials technologies to the next level

• Rakuten TV start filming on Barcelona Surf Destination

• Barcelona members to vote on €1.5B Camp Nou project

Tech news in Spain:

• Santander Consumer launches 'Simplifi', a platform to promote financial education in Spain

• Ironhack sign agreement with N26 to provide scholarships to student for educational programs

• Jack Ma visits Spain, his 1st overseas trip since crackdown

Politics, Legal & Economics

• Spain on track to complete nuclear power phase-out by 2035

• Spain’s rush for lithium falls foul of local opposition

Good Reads

• Unexpected lessons from Spain’s economic rise

• Spain's untapped 'liquid gold (via BBC)

• What I learned after running my startup while traveling for a year (by TC)

• Twitter's algorithm favors right-leaning politics, research finds

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Interview with Oscar Pierre, CEO & founder at Glovo - Itnig Podcast: Part II (Here is Part I)

• Interview with Quim Sabria, co-founder at EDPuzzle

• Interview with Jose Luis Vega de Seoane, co-founder at Kilimanjaria

Great Events

This wek:

• Mon, 25 Oct @18:30: Afterwork CASA SEAT: present and future of the electric car

• Tue, 26 Oct @18:30: JavaScript for Beginners – Free Online Workshop

• Thu, 28 Oct @18:30: Product Design Sprint: Free Online Workshop

Upcoming:

• 3 Nov: Startup Grind Mataró hosts Sergio Balcells (Entrepreneur & Internet Companies Manager)

• 16-18 Nov: Smart City Expo World Congress

• 24-26 Nov: VIII S2B Impact Forum

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

Jobs

• Caravelo is recruiting a Data Engineer & a Director of Engineering

• QMENTA is hiring several tech & business roles

• Honest Greens is looking for a Senior Accountant

• Red Points is recruiting a Product Marketing Manager

• eDreams is hiring a Strategy Director

• Globalpraxis is looking for a Strategy Consultant (FMCG)

• Unnax is recruiting several tech positions

• GetWith is hiring a Head of Design

• CodeOp is recruiting several instructor & IT roles

• Netcentric is looking for several IT positions