Barcelona's Weekly Tech Update

Happy holidays all,

This week’s main headlines:

• Harvard uses Catalonia as case study 🌟

• INBRAIN Neuroelectronics raises €15M 💰

• ENISA certifies 565 startups ✅

🎊 Celebrating 500 editions of Barcinno 🎊

Thank you very much! Today’s newsletter is our 500th edition. What a remarkable achievement. Accounting for the brief summer and winter breaks this newsletter takes, it means we’ve been sharing Barcelona startup, tech, and innovation news for 10 years now.

🪩 Back then (Dec 2013), Miley Cyrus led the charts in Spain, tormenting us all with the fittingly named song “Wrecking Ball”. Arsenal topped the league–oddly enough, as they are now. And Twitter matured following a successful IPO, only to devolve into a spoiled kid 10 years later. In our ecosystem, Wired’s top 3 Barcelona startups featured Social Point (#1) and Kantox (#3), both of which were eventually sold in 9-figure deals.

So as we mark the momentous milestone of Barcinno’s 500th edition, we want to once again pass on our gratitude for your continued support and engagement.

📝 As promised, we're inviting you to participate in our Barcinno reader survey. Your feedback is invaluable for us to continuously improve and deliver the most relevant and insightful content.

By completing the brief survey, you'll have the opportunity to:

• Tell us what you like most about the newsletter

• Share your insights on how we can improve it

• Give suggestions for additional features

• Explore the possibility of exclusive content offerings

Your input is key to shaping the future of Barcinno, so we eagerly await your response 🙏 

Click here to access the survey.

Have a great week and see you in the New Year!

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• INBRAIN Neuroelectronics, a spin-off of the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) & ICREA, raises almost €15M

• TikTok-inspired travel booking platform beder closes first €490K funding round

• Libre Foods wins €335K grant to pioneer low-cost mycelium for meat alternatives

Barcelona startup news

• E-commerce returns startup Rever increases revenue tenfold & opens subsidiaries in France and Italy

• FAST TV startup Love TV Channels celebrates its first year and plans to expand in 2024

• Estoko Logistics named best logistics startup in Spain 2023

Spanish investment news

• Madrid renewable energy firm Green Eagle Solutions bags €6M

• Digital fund manager Crescenta raises €2M, reaching €3.5M in Spain's largest fintech Pre-Seed round

• Valencian smart charger producer V2C closes €2M

• Sustainable mobility startup Guppy gets €1M

• Pamplona-based MainRail raises €854K

• Women’s health startup Arediana gets €300K

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Samaipata invests in 7 new projects in 2023, the ‘year of macroeconomic uncertainty’

• Norrsken Launcher raises €100M impact fund and makes a case for plastic-free plastic

• EU invests €50M to help startups scale up alternative proteins

• BCN healthcare VC Invivo Partners invests in Belgian company EsoBiotec

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Open Call: exhibit your creativity, research & technology projects at Sónar+D 2024; deadline extended until Jan 10

• Enagás’ new Ingenia Energy Challenge edition is open for solutions in renewable gases & fuels, sustainability & energy efficiency, and industry 4.0 & digitalization; apply until Jan 14

• Go2Scale’s 5-month verticalized accelerator is open for startups in the Contech and Digital Industry sectors

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews

• Glovo tech blog: How our new machine translation feature transforms your ordering experience

• Interview with Kave Home CEO Francesc Julià Ametller: “Success depends on your mentor”

• Nikias Molina: Young YouTuber & creator of entertainment app Kernel

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona

• Harvard Business School will study the case of cluster policy in Catalonia and its impact on the competitiveness of Catalan companies

• BSC inagurates its 5th supercomputer, Marenostrum 5

• Mango invoices over €3B, will open 500 stores & gives 5% capital to its CEO

• Singaporean multinational TDCX chooses Barcelona to lead its expansion throughout Europe

• Fira breaks records with €250M revenue in 2023 after growing 18% & hosting over 270 events

• Audiovisual fair ISE counts its economic impact on Barcelona: almost €400M

Tech & big company news in Spain

• Meta COO Javier Oliván cashes in 16,903 shares earning €5.2M

• Carme Artigas resigns as Spain’s secretary of state for digitalization and AI

• Telefónica lowers its ERE compensation limit to 60% with 3,950 affected

• BBVA named Europe's most sustainable bank for 4th year in a row

Politics, legal & economics

• ENISA has certified 565 startups so far (who can benefit from the Startup Law) and approved 643 loans totaling €112M; the majority have gone to Catalan firms

• Spain’s digital competitiveness worsened in 2023 according to IMD ranking

• EU to expand support for AI startups to tap its supercomputers for model training

Good Reads

• How to really take time off

• Bewater’s ranking of capital-efficient companies

• Emprendedores: the 50 most innovative Spanish startups of 2023

• BCN startup Outvise’s best Winter 2023 reads 

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Lots of great videos (panels, talks, etc.) from the 10th Ship2B Impact Forum

• Inbound marketing and brand reputation, with Cyberclick CEO David Tomàs (Life on Mars, ES)

• Selling a company for €80M in 40 months: La Nevera Roja’s José del Barrio (Itnig, ES)

Great Events

This week:

• 🎄

Upcoming:

• Wed, 10 Jan @18:00: Ctrl+HACK+ZK Virtual Hackathon

• Thu, 11 Jan @18:30: Fuckup Nights Barcelona (Vol. XLVI)

• Tue, 23 Jan @09:30: LUMENS'24: annual networking event for UPF Alumni

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

Startup Jobs:

• Bourbon Creative is hiring FR Writers (100% remote)

• iLovePDF is looking for a Senior Frontend Developer

• Housfy is seeking a CRM Specialist

• This is Unicorn needs a Brand Strategist (remote)