Barcelona's Weekly Tech Update

Hello and happy February,

This week’s main headlines:

• BCN’s Nebeus gets €250M 💰

• H&M closes quarter of ES stores ❎

• VC State of Gender Diversity report 📃

MWC Parties & Events Guide now live

We are excited to finally share our 10th annual Mobile World Congress & 4YFN 2024 Parties & Events Guide 🙌

As we gear up for the 10th anniversary of the biggest tech and startup event in Barcelona, this guide is your go-to for discovering all the must-attend parties and happenings (official and unofficial) on and around the last week of February.

🧹 We keep the list regularly updated right up until the event itself. So bookmark it and check back! To date, it includes everything from meetups for our French, Dutch, and Swedish contingents to investor pitches on a yacht 🛥️ and a networking breakfast for women VCs.

Click here for the guide and head here if you are organizing an event during MWC/4YFN and want us to add it to the list.

Also, last October, we shared the details to have your say in the European Venture 2023 State of Gender Diversity survey. It’s now out:

🥊 European female entrepreneurs raised €5.9B in 2023, a drop since the peak years of ‘21 and '22 but one that’s consistent with the overall slowdown. Most (76%) believe it is harder to raise capital today than it was a year ago.

💸 Just 11% of venture capital in Europe went to female-founded/co-founded firms.

🇪🇸 The UK, Germany, France, and Spain made the highest number of investments into female-founded companies in 2023.

Read more here.

Have a great week!

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Crypto-backed loan solution Nebeus secures €250M institutional funding

• Aldara closes €2.7M, a new digitized service for homeowner building communities 

• Affirma Biotech raises €1.75M to advance the development of its new broad spectrum anti-infectives

• Genesy AI closes €450K Pre-Seed Round led by Kfund, Itnig & JME Ventures

Barcelona startup news

• Holaluz doubles its solar market share in 2023 to over 3%, despite the 49-54% slowdown in the residential solar market

• Dogfy Diet expands operations with a new 2.4K-meter office in Zona Franca

• Kave Home sells its Barcelona logistics center to Aquila Capital for €100M

• Hourly hotel booking platform BYHOURS joins Latin American superapp Rappi

Spanish investment news

• PLD Space wins €40.5M government funding for Miura 5 launch vehicle

• Madrid energy consumption app Clevergy raises €1.5M

• AI-powered physiotherapy platform TRAK secures €1.3M

• Malaga-based agritech Agrow Analytics closes €650K

• Mango StartUp Studio invests in its next project, Valencian market analytics & data startup Flipflow 

• Travel platform Amadeus acquires Portuguese biometrics firm Vision-Box for €320M

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Ex-PP president Pablo Casado launches VC fund to invest in security and defense

• Cardumen Capital announces first closing of Cardumen Fund III: AgriFoodTech (SFDR 9), in partnership with the Basque Culinary Center

• Kibo Ventures launches Nzyme, a new private equity fund with a target size of €200M focused on small & medium-sized Spanish companies

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• The first Jump Startup for Women in deeptech is designed to support 20 outstanding entrepreneurs in the health and biotechnology sector in Spain; apply until 1 Mar

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews

• Haaus Coliving: All-inclusive rooms & apartments in BCN

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona

• Deeplabs (platform of Stoneshield Capital) to create the first science and innovation hub in Catalonia: BaSID (Barcelona Science Innovation District) 

• Danish firm Monta closes €80M to accelerate EV charging infrastructure deployment from Barcelona

• CaixaBank profits rose to €4.8B last year, an increase of 53.9%; just after Banco Sabadell announced profits soaring 55% to reach €1.3B

Tech & big company news in Spain

• H&M to close a quarter of its stores in Spain 

• MediaMarkt will develop artificial intelligence with Google and Microsoft

• The Flexitarian Project is born, the largest collaborative plant-based project between startups and Spanish food companies

• Meta rents Spanish real estate company Merlin’s data centers, Cinco Dias says

Good Reads

• Why is fintech failing boomers?

• ‘Over Time the Trust Will Come’: An Exclusive Interview With TikTok’s CEO

• Everything you need to know about the Apple Vision Pro

• Facebook’s 20th anniversary: From frat-house dream to tech empire

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Interview with Klarna Co-Founder & Norrsken Foundation Founder Niklas Adalberth (The Entrepreneurs, EN)

• Lessons learned by one of the biggest and most global investors: Marcel Rafart (TB, EN)

• Technology and speed at high scale, with Tinybird Co-Founder Javi Santana (Life on Mars, ES)

Great Events

This week:

• Tue, 6 Feb @10:30: Startup Investor Accelerator Open Coffee 

• Wed, 7 Feb @18:30: Expat Taxes, Visas & Investments: Free Info Session

• Thu, 8 Feb @18:30: Startup Talks: How to lead the scalability of your company

Upcoming:

• Mon, 12 Feb: Tech Spirit Barcelona – Health Edition

• Tue, 13 Feb @19:00: First Time Angel Investing? Steps, Maps & Guides to Start

• Sun, 25 Feb @ 17:00: Venture Leaders Mobile Investor Pitching 2024 Sailing Trophy (register by 19 Feb)

• Wed, 28 Feb @20:00: Angels & Beers (for Investors)

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

🗓️ Check out our regularly updated MWC Parties & Events guide here.

Startup Jobs:

• Platanomelón is looking for a Copywriter Jr

• Holded is hiring a QA Analyst

• TravelPerk needs a User Researcher

• +555 Barcelona-based fintech job openings