Hello and happy Monday,

Today's main headlines:

• BCN is EU's 7th startup hub for future 🦄

• Barcelona to roll out smart payments on 🚌

• Spanish startups net record €686M in Jan22

Build great things, take care & have a great week :)

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Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Cosmetics biotech company Vytrus Biotech raised €2.4M 

• High-performance battery tech developers Bold lands €2.3M

• BCN & London-based data privacy startup ID Ward gets €1.1M to further expand into EU & the UK

• Data, AI & automation company DOST secures its first round of €430K 

• Sportstech startup Evix has been awarded €10K by Barcelona Activa for their cervical airbag project

• Glovo set to acquire its Ukrainian equivalent Zakaz.ua

Barcelona startup news

• Wallbox and Uber expand their partnership and aim to go nationwide by the end of April 2022

• 5 startups tipped to be the next Spanish unicorns include BCN’s Colvin & Typeform

• Healthtech organization Impress expands into the Ukrainian market after acquiring local competitor Orthos

• Barcelona Activa will accompany 20 local startups to 4YFN 2022 to publicize their projects; here’s the full list

• - One of them is Kreios Space, a deep tech startup developing an electric propulsion system for satellites and that won the Barcelona Activa startup pre-acceleration program award

Spanish investment news

• Madrid & US-based Skydweller secures €35M from various investors to develop their unmanned solar-powered airplane

• - Skydweller also announced a new partnership agreement with Telefonica

• Asturian clean energy startup Plexigrid raise €2M 

• Bilbao-based translation & localization firm Berba lands a €1.1 seed round

• Madrid-based tennis & padel app Playtomic acquires GotCourts 

• Madrid’s Tus Media Grou has been acquired by Vienna edtech platform GoStudent

• Asturian infotech company Izertis acquired Madrid consulting firm Duonet 

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Fundacion Bankinter reports show 1/4 of the €4.3B raised last year by Spanish startups came from those who relocated their HQs to the US, like Travelperk

• Spanish startups break new investment record in January with over €686M raised, compared to €370M in Jan 2021

• Seaya Ventures took part in the €40M Series A round for French healthtech firm Resilience 

• Spain has raised €22M in seed stage funding this January, ranking 8th in the European top 10

• Madrid-based GenZ-ers Enzo Ventures launch their 2nd seed fund aimed at young entrepreneurs totaling €20M 

• The Catalan Institute of Finance (ICF) invests €3M in Kibo Ventures Fund III

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Klaytn ​​are looking for blockchain startups in gamefi, metaverse and defi for their Singapore-based incubation program powered by F10; apply until Feb 25

• Lanzadera to launch a new ‘Retailtech’ initiative with Merlin Properties; apply until 7 Mar 

• Amazon & the EIT Climate-KICteam announced the launch of their Amazon Launchpad Sustainability accelerator; apply until March 25th

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews:

• Brickken: software providers for the tokenization of real estate and assets.

• Aflorithmic: AaaS platform enabling fully automated, scalable audio production using synthetic media

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona:

• Barcelona ranks as the 7th startup hub in the EU for future unicorns

• Barcelona will be the first city in Spain to implement card & smart payments on buses

• Logistics firm Mecalux will list its shares in Madrid, bringing its value to €2B

• eDreams have signed a strategic partnership agreement with British Airways and Iberia

Tech news in Spain:

• Cabify threatens penalties for the VTCs who walked out, claiming non-compliance

• Neobank Revolut to launch consumer lending service in Spain

• Iberdrola launch reforesting project to promote recovery of natural areas in 'empty Spain'

Politics, Legal & Economics

• Good to know for startups: The gig economy rules in Europe and Spain’s 2021 Riders Law

• Trade unions say that Uber and Deliveroo workers will be reclassified as employees

• Contributions to Spanish pension plans fall by 41% due to tax changes

Good Reads

• Interview and explanation of the upcoming startup law measures with Francisco Polo, high commissioner for Spain Entrepreneurial Nation

• 61 Spanish investors & entrepreneurs share what subjects they think schools should teach and what would have benefited their careers

• eDreams co-founder Mauricio Prieto’s Substack overview of blockchain VC funding

• How older hires in the startup sphere have just as much to bring to the table 

• Fintech for GenZ: premium bonds are back with a new twist 

• Makeup in the metaverse 

• Web3 is not going to change the world, according to Dr. Ewan Kirk

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Interview with Pau Ramon (Factorial), Javier Santana (Tinybird) & Miguel Carranza (RevenueCat) on being a CTO (ES)

• Interview with Spotahome’s Alejandro Artacho about mental health (ES)

• Interview with Laura Urquizu, founder & CEO of BCN’s Red Points (ES)

Great Events

This wek:

• Mon-Fri, 7-11 Feb: [ONLINE] PATC: Introduction to Big Data Analytics

• Mon-Wed, 7-9 Feb: DeveloperWeek 2022

• Tue, 8 Feb @18:30: Online Workshop: Your first steps in coding

• Thu, 10 Feb @19:30: Online Workshop: Learn Web Scraping with Python in 2 hours

• Sat, 12 Feb @11:00: Online Workshop: Women’s Coding Day

Upcoming:

• Tue, 15 Feb @18:30: Online Workshop: UX & UI Design for Entrepreneurs

• Wed, 16 Feb @17:00: How to become an Angel investor or a Board member?

• Mon-Thu, 28 Feb - 3 Mar: Mobile World Congress 2022

• Mon-Thu, 28 Feb - 3 Mar: 4YFN

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

Jobs

• Bourbon Creative is looking for a:

• - Freelance Tech Writer (Native Spanish)

• - Freelance Tech Editor (Native Spanish)

• Opticks is hiring an Account Executive (Spanish Market)

• Bcombinator is recruiting a Marketing and Events Intern

• Heura Foods is looking for an Accounts Payable Technician

• Mouters is recruiting a Director of Operations

• Factorial is hiring a Head of Product Partnerships

• Bier Daten is looking for a Co-Founder & CMO

• UserActive is recruiting a Senior Product Designer (UI/UX)

• CodeOp is looking for a Manager Strategic Partnerships

• Oliva is hiring a:

• - Senior Full-Stack Engineer

• - Senior DevOps Engineer

• Netcentric is looking for several IT positions