Hello,

This week’s main headlines:

• Climate tech Mitiga gets €13M 🌪️

• Heura’s crowdfunding closes at €3.4M 🥕

• 4 BCN startups go to MWC Shanghai 🇨🇳

The importance of entrepreneur events & conferences for our ecosystem 🌍

Firstly, congrats to our friend Jordi Bolet on the success of the Startup Grind Tech Summit 2023 🎊 (check out a recap here). This is just one example of the many events that play a crucial role in our ecosystem.

As Àlex summarized over on Twitter: “We need to bring back more events and conferences because they're catalyzers for the industry and local ecosystems.”

So what are the benefits?

🤝 Valuable opportunities for collaboration, learning, and networking, ultimately enhancing our chances of success. By coming together, we can achieve more as a community than we could individually.

📍 These events help put Barcelona on the map as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. In some cases, they even influence rankings (for what they’re worth) – e.g. some consider the number of entrepreneurship meetups as a score for ecosystem community engagement and activity.

Smaller meetups are harder and more stressful than you can imagine. And big events like conferences multiply that by at least 10x. So thanks 🙏 to all the regulars who have been doing it for years like Àlex (Startup Grind BCN), 4YFN, Victoria & Daniel (European Blockchain Convention), Smart City Expo World Congress, and many others.

It’s great to see new smaller events popping up from those taking the initiative, so thanks to those too: Jordi for Startup Grind Mataro, NoBullshit Talk (next one on Thu 25 May), Fuckup Nights Barcelona (next one on Wed 31 May), and of course, BCN FinTech (next one this Wed 24 May).

📊 Poll time: What vertical would you like to see more events in?

Have a great week! ☺️

The Happiness ROI Programme: Week 4

Powered by The -C- Coach, in collaboration with Barcinno and OneCoWork.

I’m genuinely uplifted and inspired by the number of people that have enrolled in the Happiness ROI Programme so far! This week, we’re continuing to explore our third wellbeing pillar: Practicing Gratitude.

I'm sharing another story that you submitted, this time with permission from Joana. The guidance offered looks at establishing a daily habit of gratitude practice. It's an easy way to increase your happiness levels by 25% - by investing just 5 minutes a day for 3 weeks!

_{Dear The -C- Coach,}

Read Joana's full story and the response from The -C- Coach now!

Thank you again to Joana! Please keep writing in and sharing your stories with me, and together we can continue to learn and grow together.

Next week, we'll unlock our fourth pillar: Boundaries. We'll be tackling possibly some of the toughest challenges yet to support our mental health and wellbeing.

Remember, please contact me any time if you need further support or guidance on the Happiness ROI Programme.

With heart and integrity,

Mehibe,
The -C- Coach

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Climate risk startup Mitiga Solutions raises €13M co-led by Microsoft; apparently they also decided to stay in BCN despite investors pushing for a move to the U.S. 

• Heura Foods’ crowdfunding closes at €3.4M from 3.6K new investors

Barcelona startup news

• 4 BCN startups selected to display at MWC Shanghai & explore the Asian market

• Freeverse partners with U-Play Online to bring blockchain to football management gaming

• Nora Real Foods expands from online office delivery to canteens

Spanish investment news

• Events SaaS Fourvenues raises €6.5M

• Alicante biotech Oscillum gets €1.5M

• Healthy Poke closes €1.3M

• Delivery startup Desfase gets over €500K crowdfunding in 48 hours

• Social foodtech Naria raises €400K

• HR SaaS Nailted secures €380K

• WhatsApp chatbot LuzIA gets undisclosed investment from US fund A*

• Data engineering firm Quark acquired by global leader Sener

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Early-stage European investor Seedcamp raises new fund of $180M (€165M)

• BeAble Capital adds new €50M fund to continue its work in the science equity field in Spain

• Bolsa Social launches Orizon Ventures, an ecosystem for experienced investors

• Samaipata leads €7M investment in Irish startup Nory

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• ACCIÓ’s 2023 Coupons scheme is open to boost company competitiveness with various services

• FutureTravel is looking for speakers for its October Summit in Barcelona

• Cuatrecasa’s 8th accelerator call is still open for startups with innovative legal challenges (from any sector); until May 28

• Amazon Web Services launches defense accelerator for startups with AWS cloud tech: until July 1

• Cemex Ventures’ Construction Startup Competition 2023 offers investment & exposure for construtech, supply chain, etc solutions; until July 2

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews

• Badi: Story of a startup

• Deep Hearing: AI sound detection for the hearing impaired

• Enric Asunción (Wallbox): Europe is lagging behind with the electric car

• Flipme: Reforms to flip your home, even for free

• Interview with Softonic CEO Fiona Garvey

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona

• Startup Grind Tech Summit 2023 places Mataró & TecnoCampus as benchmarks for tech entrepreneurship

• German tech firm GFT plans to hire 150 new people in Catalonia

• Bacardi allies with Tech Barcelona to drive innovation projects in the city’s digital ecosystem

• Amazon opens Figueres warehouse to ship 600K daily orders throughout Europe

• Casa Amatller incorporates new digital museum with 2K m2 of VR & immersive video

• Global IT infrastructure provider Kyndryl to help Catalan government move its tech to the cloud

Tech & big company news in Spain

• Owners of Idealista explore taking the company public

• Capchase launches BNPL solution to accelerate SaaS sales & revenue

• PLD Space to launch first private suborbital reusable rocket this month

• Naturgy buys Ardian’s renewable assets in Spain for €650M

Politics, legal & economics

• Spanish political parties debate data, startups & AI in anticipation of regional elections

• Ministry of Equality to release free app for women & households to track chores

Good Reads

• The Dark Side of AI: How Fraudsters Exploit ChatGPT for Ad Fraud

• Felipe Alfaro, Glovo: Are those fries really missing? Preventing refund abuse with machine learning

• Why Kibo Ventures invested €20M in BCN startup Innovamat (Sonia Fernández)

• 2023: A pivotal year for deep tech investing and venture building in Spain?

• The startups disrupting pet care with wearable tech (ft. BCN’s DinBeat)

Good Videos & Podcasts

• How we find clients in San Francisco, with Mars Based CEO Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit (Life on Mars, EN)

• What it’s like to manage 27 employees at 21, with Rand App CEO Pol Martin (ES+subs)

• Honei: Bringing innovation and technology to restaurants starting from 0 (ES+subs)

Great Events

This week:

• Wed, 24 May @18:30: BCN FinTech Afterwork X Barcinno #008: FinTech Regulation 

• Wed, May 24 – Fri, May 26: Kaospilot Masterclass Barcelona: Designing & Facilitating Learning Spaces #1

• Thu, 25 May @19:00: No Bullshit Talk #09: Josep Casas, Investor & Co-founder of Naturitas

Upcoming:

• Wed, 31 May @18:30: Fuckup Nights Barcelona Vol. XLI

• Wed, 31 May @18:30: Startup Masterclass: Essential Skills for Building and Scaling a Business

• Thu, 1 Jun @09:00: TB Breakfast with Carlos Pierre, Badi

• Wed, 7 Jun: The Marketing Meetup with Olga Andrienko, VP of Brand Marketing @Semrush

• Thu, 15 Jun @15:00: Innovating Together: Spain & Lithuania’s FinTech Frontier 2023

• Thu, 15 Jun @09:00: Hired!Bcn: Talent acquisition conference

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

Startup Jobs:

• OneCoWork is hiring a Community Associate

• Impress need a Chief Product Officer

• Lexidy wants a Head of Product

• Scalapay is hiring a Head Of Sales - Spain

• Sunhero is looking for a Head of Marketing

• Mitiga Solutions wants a Head of Marketing

• European Blockchain Convention is hiring a Web3 Community Builder

• Banktrack need a CMO

• Strands is hiring a Content Strategist

• Games for a Living is looking for a C#/Unity Software Developer

• Kantox is hiring DACH, UK & ES Business Development Reps

• Timup is recruiting a Startup CEO

• Antai Ventures is looking for a SaaS Specialist