Barcelona's Weekly Tech Update

Hello and Happy Monday,

This week’s main headlines:

• One BCN fintech sells for €40M, another raises €30M 📱

• Factorial plans M&As & big growth 📈

• AstraZeneca opens BCN hub 💉

Barcelona fintech industry sees major growth

This week, the Barcelona fintech industry saw some major milestones, including news about the acquisition of Unnax for €40M (pending approval by the Bank of Spain) and a €30M funding round by ID Finance.

We also saw French fintech Swan announce its arrival in Spain via a launch event in Barcelona. In addition, after being launched less than a year ago, Barcelona FinTech organized its 7th event. This one was done in collaboration with Growth BCN and key insights were shared with a sell-out crowd on the topic of fintech marketing. In particular, the panelists (including yours truly) emphasized the importance of customer research, continuous learning, and leveraging trust networks (communities, referrals, influencers, and brand ambassadors) in marketing strategies.

On another note, we see lots of fintech firms (DaoPay, Qonto, ID Finance) hiring talent in BCN for sales, marketing, IT and other roles (more on that in our job section).

All these developments demonstrate the continued growth and success of the Barcelona fintech industry and community, solidifying the city's increasing position as a major player in the global fintech landscape.

If you want to chat more about where the BCN fintech industry is heading or discuss how to boost your own fintech marketing strategy, reach out to me here.

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Fintech Unnax to be acquired in full by US fund PSG Equity for €40M, pending the approval of the Bank of Spain

• Financial wellness app ID Finance secures €30M

• Sabadell home care startup Qida gets €18M

• Internationalization firm GüipUp opens €300K funding round

Barcelona startup news

• Factorial plans 3 acquisitions, ahead of US expansion & aims to double customers to 20K

• Softonic, one of the ecosystem’s first successes, boosts turnover by 34% to €26.6M after changing its strategy

• Web3 startup G4AL launches token through Bit2me, which closed at €200K in 14 seconds

• Bicircular selected as one of 10 startups for SustainableStartupDay

• Glovo agrees to limit layoffs in offices to 140 workers

Spanish investment news

• Fintech TaxDown closes €5.8M

• Fintech Wealth Readers raises €500K

• Digitized padel app Padmi scores €541K 

• AI content marketing platform KeyTrends gets €350K

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Artá ​​Capital closes €305M of its new third fund, 76% of its year target

• Bullnet Capital closes €40M of its €80M target fund, which would become the largest deeptech vehicle in Spain

• Bank of Spain launches €221M tender for tech services; tech giants & large consultancies will fight to become the main contractors

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• G-Accelerator Impact Call 2023 Program is looking for next-generation entrepreneurs launching a business with Triple impact; apply until Apr 10

• E+ Mobility Acceleration Programme opens its 2023 call for urban mobility startups that solve challenges related to energy, micromobility & shared mobility; apply until Apr 21

• Qonto has launched a series of free events in Barcelona on how to start a business step-by-step

• ThinkIn 3D Mataró launches new additive manufacturing accelerator for 3D printing solutions

• Marine-Maritime IAT’s incubator & accelerator programs are open for data analysis & AI solutions

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews

• Buo: The first anti-quick commerce supermarket for surplus food

• Happy Scribe: Student-founded transcription ‘more accurate than Google’

• Hevy: Weightlifting & tracking app making waves

• Tuklo: All-in-one system revolutionizing logistics

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona

• AstraZeneca to create 1K new jobs in BCN with largest-ever foreign R&D investment in Catalonia

• Barcelona rivals San Francisco with a 20% increase in top gaming talent

• Correos incorporates 100 e-tech vans into its fleet

• SEAT will give staff the highest pay benefits in its history

Tech & big company news in Spain

• Elche-based PLD Space to launch first private reusable rocket from Western Europe

• Leroy Merlin reports record €3.3M revenue in 2022

• Spain could go from 15 to 20 unicorns by the end of the year

Politics, legal & economics

• The European Commission will “go after” tech companies that didn’t fully disclose user numbers under the Digital Services Act

• Renewable energies will produce 50% of all electricity in Spain by 2023

• From tax cuts to free land: the Spanish towns and villages offering incentives to reverse depopulation

Good Reads

• The tax challenges of crypto & digital assets in Spain 

• A ‘prompt engineer’ on the new career path created by the AI boom

• Spain’s most successful entrepreneurs under 35

• The definitive guide to Web3 developer adoption

• Forbes: The “second quantum revolution”: Marketers must understand its implications

• FT: The female founders seeking remedies to a lack of backers

Good Videos & Podcasts

• WTF happened to SVB, with Victor Horcasitas (Life on Mars, EN)

• Wise Co-Founder: Being Skype's first employee and the difference between winners & losers (EN)

• 20VC: Why AI Will Lead to Thousands of Billionaires and Elon Musk’s (EN)

• Mercadona Online with Juana Roig (Itnig, ES YT video)

Great Events

This week:

• Wed, 29 Mar @16:00: Entrepreneur business live Barcelona

• Wed, 29 Mar @18:00: Web3 Wednesdays: Building in Web3

• Wed, 29 Mar @19:00: LeanGPT: AI-Enhanced Marketing

• Thu, 30 Mar @17:00: Esade eWorks startup Accelerator infosession (program info here)

• Thu, 30 Mar @17:30: The new year in tech: what should we focus on?

• Thu, 30 Mar @18:00: Tech Barcelona March afterwork

• Thu, 30 Mar @18:30: Tech Talks by eDreams ODIGEO

• Thu, 30 Mar @19:00: NoBullshit Talk #07 with SpotAHome’s Alejandro Artacho

Upcoming:

• Thu, 20 Apr @18:00: Barcelona tech job fair 2023

• Thu, 20 Apr–Fri, 21 Apr: EU-Startups Summit

• Tue, 25 Apr @18:00: The Barcelona Startup Conference 2023

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

Startup Jobs:

• DaoPay is hiring a Sales & Office Manager

• inbestMe is recruiting an Asesor Financiero Junior

• Qonto is filling several position (marketing, sales, IT, ...)

• ID Finance is looking for various roles (marketing, IT, accounting)

• EU-Startups is looking for Volunteers for its upcoming Summit

• MarsBased is hiring a Growth Lead (100% Remote)

• Opticks need a Sales Development Representative (Spanish market)

• Restb.ai is hiring a Product Manager

• TravelPerk is looking for an Internal Communications Specialist

• EIT Urban Mobility is recruiting a Start-up Digital Services Officer