Hello community,

This week’s main headlines:

• Final green light for the Startup Law 🚥

• BCN neobank Rand launches app 📱

• Flax & Kale get 1st funding in 40-year history 🌿

BCN startups & tech gift ideas to save your holiday season 🎁⛄

As we did last year, we’re looking forward to sharing gift ideas for this holiday season based on local startups here in Barcelona. To make sure we’re not missing anything, we need your feedback. So please share your input as a 💬 comment here.

🚀 We’ll share the full list in one of our next newsletters before the holiday season starts.

Have a great week!

We want your feedback! Help us make BCN FinTech 2023 better by giving 5min of your time to share your thoughts! What can we improve? What would you like to see? Who would you like to hear next year? Fill out this 5min-form here

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Flax & Kale raises first funding round of €21.7M to expand internationally; €14M of this will be invested in its two Spanish plants to boost production of kombucha, vegetable protein & flexitarian ready meals 

• Deeptech startup Pharmacelera finalizing a €1M round + crowdfunding to export its tech to the USA 

• Quantum tech startup Quside raises 7-digit Series A

• Healthtech Exheus close €900K & is selected as one of Hello Tomorrow’s Deep Tech Pioneers 2022 from 4000 applications in 115 countries 

• Online billing software Quipu acquired by French multinational Sellsy for an undisclosed fee

• Performance-based agency Estudio34 acquired by Madrid-based Good Rebels

Barcelona startup news

• Tradeinn clocks record numbers during Black Week: 30K average daily orders & average €120 ticket

• Parkimeter closes an agreement with Parkia, one of the largest Spanish off-street parking operators

• Software company VRi, which uses VR & AI to create 3D bioimaging visualization and analysis, wins Acclerate award at Santander X Award | Global 2022

• Catalan firms BuildLovers (in the real estate category) & Theker Robotics (digital industry) amongst award winners at Barcelona New Economy Week 2022

• Marta Rodríguez, Co-Founder of gender-equality HR startup BlindStairs, wins the 2022 Female Startup Leaders Award

• Fintech firm Rand launches its neobanking app after two years of work

• Adtech firm Tappx celebrates 9-year anniversary, announces new brand architecture

Spanish investment news

• Gipuzkoan electric vehicle tech startup EPowerlabs raise €3M

• Galician oncology biotech Arjuna Therapeutics get €1.5M

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• BCN startup Napptilus Battery Labs is crowdfunding to develop & patent its 5-minute fast-charging batteries utilizing hybrid nanomaterial technology

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Mercabarna & Barcelona Activa are promoting the 4th edition of INNOFOOD, a program for companies improving any part of the food sector value chain; apply until Dec 16

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews:

• Energiot: converting vibrations and magnetic fields into electrical energy (for real)

• Marfeel: Turning the tide with its content analysis platform

• VDM Health: detecting our health state through a mobile camera

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona:

• Quality over quantity: Madrid creates more startups (6.265 in the past 5 years vs 5.295 in BCN), but Barcelona's startup reach a higher accumulated valuation (€19B vs €14B); there is a healthy competition between the two hubs though

• Barcelona forms the first music tech association & hub in southern Europe

• Glovo inaugurates its new 30,000m2 eco HQ in 22@, named Yellow Park

• Catalonia concentrates 1,733 foreign technology companies, 26% more than in 2019

Tech & big company news in Spain:

• Telefónica minimizes its investment in Bit2Me after the fall of FTX

• More Spanish tech layoffs: Cybersecurity unicorn Devo 15% & fashiontech Lookiero 10%

• Spanish government to give tax breaks & incentives to Netflix, HBO, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video in return for producing movies & series in Spain

• Mercadona’s online service reaches 2K employees & plans to bill €530M this year

• Mutua Madrileña launches Voltio, a 100% electric carsharing service

• T_NEUTRAL, Humana, Ecocitex & Africa Collect Textiles launch the first textile waste compensation platform

Politics, legal & economics

• Final green light: The Startup Law has been approved by Congress and will come in from January 2023

• New survey by Glovo reveals European SMEs will enter 2023 in ‘survival mode’

Good Reads

• Barcelona: The past, present and future of a European startup hub

• Complete list of the 500 most influential Spanish women

• OpenAI’s new chatbot GPT: can explain code and write sitcom scripts but is still easily tricked

• Testing Amazon Clinic, the tech giant’s latest foray into healthcare

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Antonio Molins on building recommendation systems at Netflix, the ambition to change industries and the Brazilian journey at Justos (K-Fund live podcast, EN)

• 3 million advertising impacts per second with Jordi de los Pinos from BCN startup Smadex (Product Hackers podcast, ES)

Great Events

This week:

• 🏖️ Tue 6 Dec & Thu 8 Dec are bank holidays in BCN, so most people are on holidays this week

Upcoming:

• Tue, Dec 13 @18:30: Startup Grind BCN - Help Ukraine End of Year Party

• Tue, Dec 13 @19:00: Dozen Talks: The lights and shadows of artificial intelligence

• Thu, Dec 15 @18:00: Women In Tech Day

• Thu, Dec 15 @18:00: Tech Barcelona Afterwork

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

Startup Jobs:

• European Blockchain Convention need an Entrepreneur for a Blockchain Startup

• Prestalo is hiring a Financial Controller 

• Opticks is looking for a Frontend Developer

• Touchstream is hiring a Back End Developer 

• Shopery is recruiting a Senior Backend Engineer

• Qonto wants a Senior UX writer - remote-friendly

• Bitpanda is hiring a Senior Product Director, Investing as a Service

• Yego is recruiting a Product Manager

• Happy Scribe is looking for an Operations Executive

• Bicircular is recruiting a Chief Marketing Officer/CoFounder

• Bourbon Creative is hiring:

• - Freelance Content Writers and/or Project Managers (German, 100% remote)

• - Freelance Content Writers (English, 100% remote)

• Cognizant Netcentric has various open Tech roles