These are very hard times for everyone, and the startup world is facing major changes. At Itnig, we want to highlight the most important news and updates on all the resources for companies to fight COVID-19 impact.
This Google Sheets outlines what the potential ramifications of COVID-19 on European tech. It narrows down broad behavioral changes all the way to specific companies.
Factorial is posting a lot of content to help companies, managers, and employees understand and deal with the crisis like pros. They continue to update news on the new Royal Decree-Law 8/2020 of March 17 that incorporates extraordinary urgent measures to face the economic and social impact of COVID-19.
Facebook is announced a $100 million grant program for small businesses impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The social media company says that more than 140 million businesses use their apps every month. In addition to that, they estimated that over 200 million people visit an Instagram Business Profile every day.
Here’s a country-by-country roundup of government-backed resources for entrepreneurs dealing with the consequences of the current crisis.
Startup Inside Stories Podcast
This month, we had very interesting guests and topics on Itnig’s weekly podcast.
- #129: Bootstrapping with Metricool
We invited Juan Pablo Tejela, CEO and founder of Metricool, a platform for social media analytics, a key tool in digital marketing. Metricool has grown to become a Saas used by thousands of users without raising capital. Juan Pablo gives us social media insight and explains the relevant metrics that a company has to take into account.
- #130: Holaluz completes IPO with Oriol Vila
Oriol Vila, CEO, and co-founder of green energy company Holaluz visited our podcast again! Oriol explains the process of creating the company, its growth, future plans, and its initial public offering.
- #131: From Schibsted to MediQuo ft. Bruno Cuevas
We interviewed Bruno Cuevas, Co-Founder, and Co-CEO of MediQuo, a chat platform aiming to simplify the communication between health professionals and patients. Bruno comes from the corporate world, he explains his transition and what are the future plans for MediQuo.
- #132: The Startup World after COVID-19
This is a special edition with Bernat Farrero (CEO, Itnig), Jordi Romero (CEO, Factorial), Juan Rodríguez (CEO, Camaloon), Oriol Vinzia (CEO, Andjoy), and Carina Szpilka (GP, KFund).
We talked about COVID-19 and what the situation for startups and funds looks like. We discussed the need for creativity and adaptation; possible action plans post-crisis. There is huge uncertainty about fundraising. As CEOs and executives, we share how to deal with communication with teams, remote work, productivity, digitization.
- #133: Investing In Times of Crisis with Jordi Altimira
In this podcast, we talk with Jordi Altimira, CEO of UpBizor and General Partner of Lánzame Capital. Jordi is a consultant, professor, investor, and entrepreneur. Jordi is the founder of Altirnergy, BMF Business School, and UpBizor. He explains what it is like to work in investment banking. He explained what kind of investments are important now, what to expect, and what actions to take post-crisis.
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March Startup News & Updates
Other resources for companies to fight COVID-19 impact and important news in the startup world this month:
Challenger bank Revolut announced a new raise of around €460 million in Series D funding, taking the total amount raised to €769M. These fresh funds set Revolut as one of the highest valued fintech currently in the world, at approximately €5 billion.
Indico Capital Partners, the Portuguese investment firm closed €54M in financing to back more early-stage startups in Portugal and Spain. The firm says it will invest between €150,000 and €5 million in Iberian startups.
There are many tech startups pioneering health projects to really help fight COVID19. Read about these six tech startups fighting coronavirus.
Takeaway.com has won the battle for Just Eat with a €6.9 billion all-share offer. The merged Takeaway – Just Eat will create one of the world’s largest meal delivery companies. Not a threat for Glovo, which launched in Poland and acquired Pizza Portal for €35 million.
Digital Single Market: EU negotiators agree to set up new European rules to improve the fairness of online platforms’ trading practices. The new Regulation will create a more predictable and transparent trading environment online and will offer new possibilities for resolving disputes and complaints.
In a post titled Coronavirus: The Black Swan of 2020, Sequoia Capital confirmed it is already seeing a drop in business activity, disruption of the supply chain and travel curtailment. Read all about it here.
Fox Corporation will acquire streaming startup Tubi for $440M. Tubi is a streaming service with over 250 content partners, including major studios like Paramount and Lionsgate.
Fintech unicorns could see $76bn wiped off their valuations. Fintech startups have enjoyed booming valuations in the past 5 years. However, the fintech bubble looks fragile with public stocks threatened by Covid-19.
It was a busy month with everyone trying to find and offer resources for companies to fight COVID-19 impact
New Funding for Startups
- Spain – Draper B1 launches a €30M VC fund to invest in startups.
- Madrid – Cobee closes €2.1M to revolutionize employee benefit management
- BCN – Tropicfeel raises €1.2M on Crowdcube.
- Germany – WorkGenius raises €6.4 million to streamline the freelance hiring process
- UK – Thought Machine has raised $83M in a big Series B funding round.
- UK – DeepCrawl raised €16.7M Series B
- France – MWM raises €50M to become the world’s leading creative apps publisher.
- UK – XYZ Reality raises €5.7M to transform construction with augmented reality
- Portugal – Sword Health raises €8.1M to expand its tech-enabled physical therapy
- Lithuania – Vinted has raised €128M in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
- BCN – Mr.Noow raises €235K on CrowdCube.
- UK – digital bank Tandem has raised $78M
- FR – Co-living startup Colonies has raised a €30M
- FR – Le Wagon raises $19M to build a global coding boot camp.
- E25Bio has raised a $2M to create COVID-19 diagnostic test.
- Indonesia – Gojek raised $1.2 billion.
- Spain – Adamo raises €250M
- BCN – VOLAVA raises €800.000 through Inveready, The CrowdAngel, and a private investor.
- UK – Goodlord has raised a £10M Series B
- Valencia – Internxt closes €250K seed funding to expand its cloud storage tech
- UK – Cazoo snaps up €108.5M to make UK car buying digital
- Germany – Twaice raises €11M Series A to take its battery analytics global
- BONUS: Letgo acquired by OfferUp
Random Tech News
- If nearly all Airbnb reviews are positive, does that make them meaningless?
- Twitter starts testing its own version of Stories.
- SETI@home search for alien life project shuts down after 21 years.
- Reporters Without Borders uses Minecraft to sneak censored works across borders
- As a social distancing measure, Starbucks shifts to ‘to go’ model in the US and Canada.
- How to use Discord to game and watch movies with friends.
- OneWeb successfully launches 34 more satellites into orbit in the second launch of 2020.
- Tips on isolation from astronaut Scott Kelly.
- Bill Gates answers questions about Covid-19
- Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days.
- Google has completely canceled Google I/O 2020.
- Zona Franca, HP and Leitat design and produce 3D printed respirator in Barcelona.
- BONUS: Coronavirus Tracker API.
- The impact of coronavirus on global activity measured by Fitbit.
- Sony spins off-camera business into a separate company.
- Mobile ad traffic & ROAS up, CPMs down, opportunity to scale
- 5 essential Zoom hacks to improve your virtual hangouts.
- Google cancels its infamous April Fools’ jokes this year.
- Over 30K creators joined Patreon this month.
- Drone videos of quarantined cities around the world.
- Simulating an epidemic.
The whole world is focused on how to survive the crisis caused by the pandemic. At Itnig, we want to highlight the resources for companies to fight COVID-19 impact.
At Itnig, we write a weekly newsletter where we keep our community updated on everything related to startups, tech news, fundings, and we share our weekly podcast!
Subscribe and keep up with the startup universe, or feel free to come back for more startup news of the month here!