Happy New Year! Let’s talk about new great things like the new Pitch to Investors at Itnig, the biggest investment rounds of the decade, and other very important and exciting news in the startup world. Read all about it in this post:
Let’s take a look at the biggest investment rounds of the decade that is coming to an end. Is the $14 billion record of the Chinese Ant Financial going to be beaten by any company this last year of the decade?
We’ve launched a new weekly event in our space called “Pitch to investors“. Every Thursday we organize a pitch session for entrepreneurs to explain their businesses to investors like Bernat Farrero (CEO @ Itnig), Jordi Romero (CEO @ Factorial), Albert Domingo (CEO @ Nextret) or Juan Rodríguez (CEO @ Camaloon). You can either attend as a regular attendee or pitch your idea to us!
>> Get your ticket
We also hosted awesome events:
- Growth hacking with Aida Rakhmetulaeva, Daniel Peris, and Gerard Compte.
- “How to Create Your Pitch” workshop by Taran Hughes
- Game Design event organized by ExperienceLab by Imagine.
Startup Inside Stories Podcast
- 121: Renting boats with Octavi Uyà – Nautal
In this week’s podcast, Octavi Uyà, CEO at Nautal explains to us how e left the corporate live to launch Nautal. The startup was born in 2013 and pivoted targeting professionals. Bernat Farrero interviews him to learn how a boat rengint company works.
- 122: The Birth of Factorial with Jordi Romero
We had a special podcast with Jordi Romero, CEO of Factorial, and partner at Itnig. He explained the origins of Factorial.
- 123: Growth Hacking with Luis Diaz
We had an interview with Luis Díaz del Dedo, CEO of Product Hackers, an agency that boosts the growth of businesses. Luis talks about everything he has learned about Growth Hacking these years and how he applies it in growing the products of his clients.
- 124: Nubelo and the Journey of Francesc Font
Francesc Font, entrepreneur and co-founder of Nubelo visited us. He talked about his journey as an entrepreneur and all his learning through different projects in different areas; from a talent acquisition platform to matcha tea. Francesc can’t resist joining new projects, he calls it an “entrepreneurship virus”.
January Startup News & Updates
Pitch to Investors at Itnig and biggest rounds of the decade are just the beginning, here are other important news in the startup world:
Barcelona doubles Madrid’s investment in startups! The Catalan ecosystem has captured more than 2,700 million in the last four years. There’s hope for 2020 becoming the year that Spanish startups will stop needing to go abroad to raise money, as the country’s venture capital sector grows. Will this be the year that Spanish venture capital lifts off?
Santander Consumer Finance has acquired 93.8% of Autodescuento S.L., owner of the coches.com portal, launched in 2009 by Iñaki Arrola. We want to congratulate Iñaki, friend, and investor at Factorial and previous guest of Itnig’s podcast. We would also like to congratulate Christian Rodríguez on the €8M round for ByHours, its story is covered on our podcast channel.
Also, Microsoft President Brad Smith, CFO Amy Hood, and CEO Satya Nadella announced Microsoft’s plan to be carbon negative by 2030. Exciting isn’t it?
New Funding for Startups
- UK – Automated bookkeeping platform Receipt Bank raises €65.4M
- Madrid – Ever Health raises €1M
- The Netherlands – Contact center provider Anywhere365 raises €40M
- Madrid – Neobank MyInvestor raises €20M
- Barcelona – Reports startup Zinklar raises €500K
- France – EcoVadis rakes in $200 mln from CVC Growth Partners.
- Sweden – digital health tech scale-up KRY raises €140 million in financing.
- UK – Marketing tech firm partner raises $50 million in a round led by Accel-KKR.
- France – Cardiologs raises $15 million for AI that helps spot heart conditions.
- Germany – Just Spices grabs €13 million to become the leading spice mix brand.
- UK – Emergex Vaccines raises more than €9.9 million to progress its vaccines for Zika, Dengue Fever, and Ebola.
- France – Naïo Technologies raises €14 million to expand eco-farming robots.
- Ireland – Sweepr snaps up €8 million Series A with participation from Amazon Alexa Fund.
- Romania – Typing DNA raises €6.2 million in Series A funding to create ‘typing identity’ for security.
- UK – Juro raises over €4.4 million to make contracts more collaborative.
- France – Hivency raises €4 million to expand its influencer marketing platform.
- Madrid – bob.io raises €3 million to solve the frustration of traveling with luggage
- Spain – Beonprice raises €2.5 million to boost its AI-driven revenue tool for hotels.
- France – PKvitality snaps up €2.25M to develop a smartwatch for diabetes management.
- BCN – Boxmotions storage startup lands €2.4M
- Madrid – Fleet management startup Pulpomatic raises €5M
- UK – DPL snaps up €1.5 million to accelerate its personality-based AI marketing solutions.
- BCN – PANGEA raises €1M via The Crowd Angel
- UK – New $300M fund for Felix Capital
- Germany – Grover gets €250 million
- BCN – Badi hits 300K room rental listings and zooms to the US
- UK – Blossom Capital launches the second €166.8 million funds to boost early-stage EU tech startups
- France – Hivebrite lands $20 million Series A to expand in Europe and US
- Finland – Verto Analytics snaps up €14.4 million to help companies understand consumer behavior
Random Tech News
- The first day of CES 2020.
- Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’
- Google and Amazon are now in the oil business.
- OnePlus will make rear cameras ‘disappear’.
- Ex-Nissan honcho Carlos Ghosn fled Japan by hiding in a musical instrument case.
- Brazil fines Facebook $1.6 million for improper sharing of user data.
- Turkey unveils first fully homemade cars in a $3.7 billion bets on electricity.
- What will happen to cryptocurrency in the 2020s?
- Amazon tells users to uninstall a product that PayPal just paid $4 billion for.
- USA’s Department of Homeland Security urges you to update Firefox.
- Amazon has amassed nearly 3M square feet of real estate in Seattle.
- Turn your car into a self-driving one with this open-source project.
- Sony surprises with an electric concept car called the Vision-S.
- Watch live how SpaceX blows up a rocket over the Atlantic Ocean.
- E-scooter startup Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100
- Tokyo 2020 athletes will sleep on beds made from cardboard.
- Get inspired by the Top 100 Shopify stores.
- Microsoft and NSA say a security bug affects millions of Windows 10 computers.
- Moving $1.1 billion in bitcoins for an $80 fee.
- Heathrow Airport installs an anti-drone system to detect threats.
- Here’s the real reason Mark Zuckerberg is so afraid of TikTok.
- YouTube could be ‘actively promoting’ videos spreading climate denialism.
- Deepfakes are getting easier to make and the internet’s just not ready
- Microsoft will be carbon negative by 2030
- New York’s subway map like you’ve never seen it before.
- Lessons learned to go from idea to $130,000,000
- Youtube moderators being forced to sign statements acknowledging the job can give them PTSD.
- What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move?
- Vine cofounder finally releases his next viral video app: Byte
- FBI ‘persuaded Apple to halt iCloud encryption‘
- Jeff Bezos hack: Amazon boss’s phone ‘hacked by Saudi crown prince’
- Disney+ is launching a week earlier than expected in Europe
It’s an exciting month! The Pitch to Investors at Itnig and the biggest investment rounds of the decade are a great way to start 2020!
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!
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