Hello and happy Monday!

Today's main headlines:

• Amazon hiring 100 people for new @22 tech hub 🏙️

• Barcelona testing autonomous deliveries 🚚

• Spanish startup raised €1B+ so far in 2022 🚀

“If you have nothing to say, say nothing.” ― Mark Twain

Have a great week & take care! 🌻

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Sustainable mobility & bike subscription service Kleta secures €2M

• Biotech & genetic specialists Integra Therapeutics raise €1.5M 

• Biotech Flomics Biotech closes €1M seed funding round

• Programming school Assembler Institute of Technology recieved €1M

• Photonics-specialized global search engine Meetoptics closes new €1M round

• Elderly care startup Cuideo are looking for investors to complete their €1.6M fund  

Barcelona startup news

• E-learning platform Pam Learning enjoys 48% growth rate and currently has over 350 professors & 4k students

• Alternative coffee capsule startup Incapto reports 10K+ users and a €2.3M turnover

• Proptech firm Housfy increases turnover by 140% and expects to triple it in a year

• Glovo’s past & current employees report that it’s not all roses for the BCN unicorn 

• Wallapop quadruples losses to €24.5M in 2020

Spanish investment news

• Spanish startups raised over €1B this year already; this is already more than the annual amount raised in any of the pre-covid years 2017 2018 or 2019

• France- and Spain-based D2C software creators Bigblue raises €13.5M

• Madrid & Miami-based AI employee insights platform Erudit raise €3.2M

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Nortia Capital & Seaya Ventures launch Seaya Andromeda Sustainable Tech Fund for sustainability-focused startups

• Spanish firm GoHub to invest €3M in deeptech Canadian startups

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Oryon Foundation announces 2K scholarships for senior entrepreneurship

• Open call for startups to help Cruïlla, Ship2B & Estrella Damm create the most sustainable festival in the country; apply until April 21st

• Lefebvre Sarrut launches 2nd edition European legaltech accelerator Lightspeed; apply until April 25th

• Open call for entrepreneurs developing solutions to tackle water scarcity in Southern Europe; apply until April 26th

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews:

• AEInnova & Nextmol: founders of the two firms share their experience of launching from the garage, going through an accelerator and becoming listed on the stock market

• GrinGrin Foods: plant-based alternatives for meat, cheese & prepared foods

• Hana Mohan: CEO & co-founder of MagicBell: “Think of Bootstrapping as a Tool, Not as a Way of Life”

• Shopbuo: collective purchasing platform offering supermarket savings of up to 40%

• StockAgile: platform allowing management of inventories in real-time

• Víctor Barcelón: co-founder of 2 startups: “we have more resources than we think”

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona:

• Amazon to hire 100 people this year at its new tech hub in 22@

• Barcelona tests out the future of package delivery with a self-driving robot

• Barcelona Science Park sees all-time record in new companies and occupancy

• Catalonia Trade & Investment becomes a Gold member of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Canada

• Local consultancy Alfa Consulting acquired by Dublin-based Accenture

• Health care firm Palex Medical acquires Gada, a leading player in the Italian market

• Tech Barcelona incorporates Italian tech consultancy firm Spindox as a partner 

• Esade to allocate €4M to scholarships, the largest budget in its history

• Europe’s biggest food fest Alimentaria returns to BCN & will generate €180M & attract 100K visitors 

Tech & big company news in Spain:

• A Spanish unicorn organization is born to lead a new digital production model

• German neobroker Scalable Capital expands into Spain to invest in stocks, ETFs & crypto

• Uber launches its hourly vehicle rental service in Spain  

Politics, Legal & Economics

• Spain approves ‘shock plan’ to limit economic fallout from Ukraine war

Good Reads

• According to experts, BCN must have a "clear vision" to promote the startup ecosystem

• Wayra 10 years on: Telefonica has moved onto venture building, direct investing & the “anti-portfolio”

• Oscar Macia of BCN-based ForceManager reports on 6 weeks of product meetings in the metaverse 

• The Texan Bitcoin miners who want to recast themselves as eco-friendly

• Who runs Europe’s top neobanks? Not women

• The top 10 most valuable unicorns in Spain

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Building the world's largest community of entrepreneurs, with Francisco Cruz from Startup Grind (EN)

• Is speedy delivery startup Getir really worth $11.8B? & more (EN)

• Foc a Terra talk about the state of web3 (CT)

• Converting voice to text via machine learning with Marc Assens from Happy Scribe (ES)

• Metaverso: Entrepreneurship in another dimension with Wayra, Imascono, Inmersiva XR and Uttopion (ES)

• Step-by-step digitization for SMEs: David Cucurull of Telefónica Catalunya explains the new Digital Kit (ES)

Great Events

This week:

• Wed, 6 Apr @18:00: Explore Quantum Computing Conference

• Wed, 6 Apr @20:00: 360º accessibility: meetup for Product Mobile community & interested in UX/UI, Development with Flutter 

• Thu, 7 April @17:00: Bcombinator Bcapital Day - Pitch to Investors

• Thu, 7 Apr @18:00: TALENT VERSE | Afterwork for Alumni and University Students

• Thu, 7 Apr @19:00: Masterclass | Decisions in real-time: the path from Big Data to Smart Data

Upcoming:

• Wed, 20 Apr @19:00: Free Masterclass | Learn to design apps with Figma

• Mon, 25 Apr @18:30: Startup Grind BCN ft. Fuckup Nights BCN

• Wed, 27 Apr & Thu, 28 Apr: EdTech Congress Barcelona

• Thu, 28 Apr @19:00: Masterclass | Marketing Automation: automate your Customer Journey

• Thu, 5 May @18:00: Spring 2022 Barcelona Tech Job Fair

• Tue, 10 May @09:00: IOT Solutions World Congress Startup Competition 2022 

• 26-28 Jun: European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona

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

Jobs

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

• Honest Greens is looking for a Data Engineer

• Opticks is recruiting a Sales Development Representative - French Market

• OneRagTime is looking for a Venture Ecosystem Catalyst

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

• Seaya Ventures are looking for Investors

• Netcentric is looking for several IT positions