Barcelona's Weekly Tech Update

Hello and happy April,

This week’s main headlines:

• Mundimoto get ex-Intidex shareholder 🏍️

• New Spanish social entrepreneurship cup 🏆

• Two BCN M&As 🤝

🐣 With most recharging over the Easter break and a quiet news week all around, let’s get straight into it.

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Tech training platform for businesses Multiply raises €500K

• Progressive lens maker Horizons Optical sells majority stake to Oakley Capital 

• Aquatreat acquired by Premier Tech Water and Environment

Barcelona startup news

• Former Inditex CEO Pablo Isla joins Mundimoto as a shareholder

• Wallbox commissions first Supernova in the US & North America

• Young entrepreneur-founded influencer agency B3hind invoices €3M in 2023 & plans to reach €5M this year 

• Mataró family fashion store Bobo Choses opens flagship store in BCN

• Smilegate closes down its Barcelona studio, laying off all employees

Spanish investment news

• Navarran biotech Lev2050 gets investment from Stellum capital & Inveready, acquiring 25%

• Galician biopharmaceutical Oncostellae closes €500K from the CDTI plus undisclosed investment from Bio & Tech Smart Capital

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Nuclear energy giant Orano to back European industrial startups with new €50M CVC

• Inveready leads $8M round in Denmark's Scaleup Finance, a platform to streamline startup financial planning

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Cajamar Innova opens new incubator call for projects addressing global water challenges; apply until May 2

• New innovative social entrepreneurship cup launched to reward the best social impact entrepreneurs in Spain

• Skills4Impact: New academy offering courses & bootcamps specialized in sustainability and climate action in Spain

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews

• How Fiona Garvey, CEO of Softonic, achieved a near-zero gender pay gap

• Venga: New startup on a mission to make DeFi and Web3 accessible

Tech News

Tech news in Barcelona

• The cluster policy in Catalonia, studied last year by Harvard, gets presented

• Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) study believes AI will force almost one in four jobs to restructure

• Parlem approves €4M capital increase to grow beyond Catalonia

Tech & big company news in Spain

• Spain-wide Telegram block overturned

• Iberdrola sues Repsol for alleged greenwashing

• Spain sets wheels in motion on Telefonica stake buy

• How the EU’s Digital Markets Act is changing Big Tech: all of the news and updates

Good Reads

• Some things you can do as a company to give back to your community

• The Verge: Here’s why AI search engines really can’t kill Google

Good Videos & Podcasts

• Interview with Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist at Canva, ex-Apple (EU-Startups, EN)

• Interview with Tiendeo Co-founder Eva Martín (Seedrocket, ES)

Great Events

This week:

• Tue, 2 Apr @10:30: Startup/Investor Open Coffee. Let's talk Startups, Growth and Investing!

• Wed, 3 Apr @18:30: Aticco Talks: Effective communication for happier teams

• Thu, 4 Apr @18:00: TechMeetups Barcelona Tech Job Fair

• Fri, 5 Apr @09:30: Promoting Entrepreneurship: Lessons Learnt from Research on Corporate Entrepreneurship

Upcoming:

• Tue, 9–Thu, 11 Apr: Advanced Factories Industry 4.0 Congress

• Wed, 10 Apr @18:30: AI Strategy & Marketing: Why? How? And Why Now?

• Wed, 17 Apr @18:30: Aticco Talks: Boost your brand's presence on TikTok

• Wed, 24 Apr @18:30: BCN FinTech X Barcinno #014: Payment Technology

• Sat, 27 Apr @10:30: 4Voices Public Speaking for teens: The Digital Jungle: navigating the online world

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

Startup Jobs:

• Novicap is hiring an Indirect Sales Associate

• Heura is looking for a Graphic Designer and Art Director

• Mitiga Solutions needs an IT Systems Lead