Barcelona's Weekly Tech Update

Hello all,

This week’s main headlines:

• €400M legal costs for Glovo? 🧑‍⚖️

• Reby in liquidation 📉

• Lots of VC news & funds 💰

Getting back to it 💻

It’s back to business for most, so with plenty of news to kick off September (and a full inbox to get through for most), let’s get straight to it 💪

Meanwhile, here are some interesting things to ask yourself about what your vacation says about your 9-5…

Have a great week!

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Oncology biotech AbilityPharma looks to close €2M of its €7M funding goal through Capital Cell

Barcelona startup news

• Glovo could have to pay €400M in costs due to legal status of couriers

• Reby will go into liquidation with a debt of €15M

• Doctomatic enters Mexican healthcare with two new agreements

• Cebiotex seeks a new investor for its oncology patent and targets the U.S. & China

Spanish investment news

• Basque biotech Glycoscience raises €1.9M

• Mallorcan booking SaaS Hotelverse closes €1.2M round by incorporating Plug & Play as an investor

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• London-based The Players Fund consolidates the athlete-investor community with a €47M fund

• Barcelona VC Nina Capital invests in Israeli pharma startup QuantHealth

• BCN-based Titanes Together invests in Swiss metaverse startup Olyverse

• New Finnish VC Greencode closes €40M of target €60M-100M fund for digital and software climate startups in Europe

• Dutch deeptech VC PhotonVentures raises €60M, launches new fund to invest in early-stage photonic chip startups and scale-ups

• Santander InnoEnergy Climate Fund co-leads €5M investment in Swedish firm Novatron Fusion Group

• Alantra gets authorization from Dubai Financial Services Authority to start investment activities in the Middle East

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Mind the Bridge is running its first Desafia program for Spanish women entrepreneurs looking to scale in the U.S.; until Sept 20

• TechFounders’ 20-week B2B accelerator is open for Seed/Series A-stage startups; until Sept 25

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews

• Biyiud: App connecting sustainable brands with consumers to aid the energy transition

• Caravelo: Flight subscriptions for airlines

• How Preply became one of the largest online language learning startups in the world

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona

• Catalan tech boom ‘threatened by lack of talent & needs 12,000 more professionals’

• eDreams leaves behind its losses of the last 3 years, earning €4.1M profits

• Inaugural blockchain hackathon set for Barcelona as part of 9th EBC

• IMAX cinema in Port Vell reopens after 9 years; not for movies, but the Copa América

Tech & big company news in Spain

• Mercadona invests €13.2M in new Madrid warehouse to expand online sales

• Spain suffers the largest withdrawal of deposits in Europe, with CaixaBank at the helm

• Journalist Paula Solanas releases a book about Spanish startups ‘The Unicorn Club: Glovo, Cabify, Jobandtalent and Idealista: the alternative history of the Spanish Silicon Valley’

Politics, legal & economics

• Spain has 3rd most universities in EU ranked among top 1,000 in the world

Good Reads

• The 108 European startups in Y Combinator’s S23 cohort

• The Verge: The fandomization of news

• Where will the tourists go? Europe’s winning and losing destinations due to the climate crisis

• 20 Spanish startups boosting the tourism industry

• The tiny Caribbean island adding 10% GDP thanks to its .ai domain name

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Generative AI and Building New Products with Typeform (Enginears, EN)

• José del Barrio: Founder of La Nevera Roja, sold for €80M (Magistral, ES)

Great Events

This week:

• Tue, 5 Sep–Fri, 8 Sep: Free 3-day Coding Challenge

• Fri, 8–Sun, 11 Sep: IndieDevDay Gaming Event

Upcoming:

• Wed, 13 Sep: Women+ Who Have Transitioned to Tech, Parents Edition

• Tue, 19 Sep @10:30: Work in Barcelona! Job Fair

• Tue, 19 Sep @18:45: Investment and Startups: Navigating the Future of Work

• Thu, 21 Sep @19:00: Startup Talks: Future Trends in B2B Sales

• Wed, 27 Sep–Thu, 28 Sep: The AI & Big Data Congress

• Sat, 30 Sep–Sun, 1 Oct: SmartCon Hacker House: Building Web3

• Mon, 9 Oct–Wed, 11 Oct: GSAS 2023 → Use code barcinno-gsas23 for 20% off 🙌 

• Wed, 25 Oct @18:00: Barcelona Tech Job Fair Autumn 2023

• Tue, 24–Thu, 26 Oct: European Blockchain Convention 9

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

Startup Jobs:

• Brickbro is hiring a Product Manager

• AILY Labs is looking for a Principal Data Scientist

• BSC spinoff Qbeast needs a Product Marketing Manager

• M47 Labs is hiring a:

  • QA Automation Engineer (API)

  • Software QA Tester

• Benevity is recruiting a People and Culture Manager

• Oliva is looking for a Senior Engineer (React Native)