Barcelona's Weekly Tech Update

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Hello and happy Monday,

This week, sustainability stands out 🌿 with BCN startups like HEMAV, Mitiga Solutions, and Roll’Eat attracting funding, recognition, and expansion. Meanwhile, AI and deeptech 🦾 continue to dominate, with local firms putting them to work in healthcare, proptech & more. In tech news, Barcelona will host one of the EU's first seven AI factories.

Enjoy the issue and have a great week! 🔥

Startup & Investment News

Barcelona investment news

• Boutique wellness platform bsport raises €30M

• HEMAV gets €8M to advance AI-driven sustainable agriculture

• Personalized cancer treatment platform Nanobots Therapeutics closes €1M 

• Biopharmaceutical spinoff Origine Bio raises €800K

Barcelona startup news

• Sustainable sandwich wrapper creator Roll'Eat to launch new product line in 2025 for zero-waste supermarket shopping

• Keybotic, Submer, Aistech, SonoSuite, Mitiga Solutions & more make Emprendedores’s 50 most innovative Spanish startups of 2024

• Fintech-proptech Nidô launches NidoScout, an AI-powered real estate investing assistant

• YPlasma, a pioneering developer of plasma actuators, named Catalan startup of the year at Acció’s Pitch Competition

Spanish investment news

• AI startup HappyRobot raises €14.8M from a16z & YCombinator (US-based with Spanish DNA)

• ESG data platform Dcycle closes €6M led by Samaipata

• Medtech Corify Care secures €6M for its cardiac mapping technology

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Startup associations call for the creation of a European Tibi to boost VC investments from pension funds & insurers

• Wayra & Telefónica’s fintech/insurtech vehicle Íope Ventures invests in Argentinian home services platform Rapihogar as it expands into Spain

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• European Videogame Accelerator: Pan-European 6-month program; deadline 15 Jan

• Zero Accidents AI Challenge: Global solutions combining satellite and vehicle data with AI to transform traffic management & road safety; deadline 24 Jan

Barcelona startup & entrepreneur profiles & interviews

• M.IA: The intelligent assistant that automates financial reports & tasks

• Youshift: 3 Spanish Harvard students solving problems for hospital shift staff

Tech & Business News

Tech news in Barcelona

• Barcelona to host one of the EU's first seven AI factories, with historic €200M funding

• The 22@ district is set to close 2024 with the second-highest leasing figures in 5 years

Tech & big company news in Spain

• Bit2Me launches Bit2Me Loan, offering up to €1M secured by digital assets

• Idealista acquires UK-based Kyero to strengthen its position in international property markets

• Banco Santander to offer on-demand wage access for Spanish SMEs through new CloudPay partnership

Politics, legal & economics

• Spain named world’s best economy of 2024 by The Economist newspaper

Good Reads

• Novicap Founder Marc Antoni Macià wrote The Future of Work: How a Personal Holding Company Can Transform Your Career and Life

• Zing Coach Co-Founder & CEO Tanya Parfenyuk: How to close a $10M funding round while pregnant

Great Events

This week:

• Mon, 16 Dec: Nuclio Hub Christmas Beers

• Wed, 18 Dec @19:00: BCN FinTech Vermut & Networking, ❄️Winter Edition

• Wed, 18 Dec @20:00: SIA Angels & Beers BCN - for Investors

• Wed, 18–Mon, 23 Dec: CaixaBank Tech Coding Challenge

Upcoming:

• Thu, 3 Jan @18:30: LinkedIn + ChatGPT: The Secret Formula to Break Through in the Professional Network

• Thu, 30 Jan @18:30: Entrepreneurship through science: the new opportunity of the deeptech ecosystem

Got news or an event to share? Fill out this form – next week’s edition will be the last of 2024 before the Christmas break!

Startup Jobs:

• Exoticca needs an English Copywriter

• Revnuu is hiring Marketing & Graphic Design Interns 

• Aticco is looking for a City Operations Manager