At Itnig, we know it’s hard to keep up with all the news and updates flying around. We have a special surprise for you this month. On our weekly podcast, we had the opportunity to welcome Andrés Pla, Founder and CEO of Prontopiso, and talk proptech and more. You will discover an animated talk with Bernat Farrero (Itnig CEO) and Juan Rodríguez (Camaloon CEO). Moreover, you will discover startups news and other 2019 updates.
As we mentioned, Itnig’s podcast welcomes Bernat Farrero and Juan Rodríguez for a talk with Andrés Pla, founder and CEO at Prontopiso. Prontopiso is a proptech business founded together with Antai (incubator by Miguel Vicente and Gerard Olivé) and has raised almost €9M to this point. Their goal is to intermediate in the merchanting of dwellings offering the owner a guarantee of sale and liquidity in less than 90 days.
Similar to the American Opendoor (with more than $1B in funding), they use an appraising algorithm to get a buying value and assume the purchase with their own balance and risk. They even offer the possibility to get €50K in advance.
If you’re a podcast lover, we have two more for you this month. In the second one, we welcome Nicolas Salame, former CEO of Akiles. In the third podcast, Bernat Farrero and Oriol Blanc are having a talk with David Jordan, from elrowFamily.
Startup Inside Stories Podcast
#74: Nicolas Salame, from Akiles
This week on Itnig’s podcast Bernat Farrero, CEO of Itnig, and Juan Rodriguez, CEO of Camaloon, talked with Nicolas Salame the 25 years old CEO of Akiles. Akiles, “A key less”, is the IoT SaaS startup that smartly manages physical access to offices and houses.
At his young age, Nicolas has gathered invaluable experience after studying two degrees and getting involved in the crypto ATMs company BTCpoint that would later become Verse. He was the CFO of the company until he left to start Akiles. Verse is a payments company in Barcelona that attracted talent, user traction and (too much) VC money quite early, and expelling the 3 founders out of the management.
Nicolas explains how they are targetting a huge universal market (b2b – mainly offices and coworkings) that is yet to start making a change. They offer a solution that provides an enterprise-ready backend for managing the service and an amazing app-based interface for users to open the doors. He defends that it is the combination of service and product that makes their customers instantly queue at their door after listening to their pitch.
With a 300k€ round they just closed and the new version of the device to be distributed in March they expect to eat the Spanish market even faster than planned.
#76 : David Jordan, from elrowFamily
This week on Itnig’s podcast Bernat Farrero (Itnig) and Oriol Blanc (Quipu) chat with David Jordan, executive and entrepreneur in different digital advertising companies.
After a commercial career in multinationals, David explains to us how he began working for Softonic (founded in 1997) at the exact moment when Google started to punished its intrusive advertising politic (due to sponsored downloads). This led Softonic’s principal source of revenues to decrease by 50% (reaching €20M), leading the company to reduce its workforce by ⅔. All of this, according to David (15:22), is what allowed the company to reinvent itself and force it to look for new ways of monetizing its huge organic traffic.
However, David thinks that advertising, even though more sophisticated, keep being over 60% of Softonic business. As a result of this, Bernat discusses (25:53) the difficulty of being able to pivot efficiently the strategy of a company.
Oriol Blanc explains (29:30) what consists Billy Mobile, the Adtech company in which he was working as CTO and was collaborating with David. He explains the different advertising formats and the business models that they developed. Oriol and David tell us (35:18) why agility in the experimentation and technological implementation are way more important than the development of a single long-term strategy.
That is precisely what drove David to launch Jarvis (37:30), a mediation model of video advertising inventory which started with manual operations and without the use of technology, that rapidly grew (41:37) until being sold to Agile Content after a one-year lifetime.
February Startup News & Updates
- January ends with €61.5M invested in Spanish startups.
- The taxis strikes in Madrid benefits Uber and Cabify.
- Mr Jeff aims to triple its numbers of franchises in 2019.
- Great interview of Andrés Saborido, Wayra CEO.
- Deliveroo expands its services to Salamanca, Vigo, Marbella and Valladolid.
- The Crowd Angel 2018 numbers.
- IESE business angels 2018 numbers.
- The 10 winners of the Gamechangers & Cities contest.
- The 2018 edition of the MWC almost got cancelled because of last year political crisis.
- SeedRocket launches the eleventh edition of the Entrepreneurs Campus.
- Repsol Foundation opens the candidature for a new edition of its acceleration program.
- Madrid Startup Europe Accelerator: the new program to subsidize ex-Madrid entrepreneur’s projects.
- On mobility, Cabify and Uber:
- Cinco Dias portrayed Juan de Antonio, Cabify CEO, and talked about Cabify plans to go public.
- Uber and Cabify forced to report all of their trajects in a public registry from the first of March.
- The electric scooter of Lime appears in the 21 districts of Madrid.
- Cinca dias interviewed Ignacio Román, general director of the carsharing company Emov.
- EFE for its part interviewed Pep Gómez co-founder of Reby an e-scooter startup from Barcelona.
- Barcelona airport call of the strike programmed during the MWC.
- Seedtable made a list of the 100 Barcelona startups to watch out in 2019. Spoiler alert our startup Factorial is one of it!
- Spotahome hires Cleo Sham, Uber ex-director of operations in the EMEA region, as its new country manager.
- Cinco dias interviewed María Benjumea the founder of Spain Startup.
- Spain comes closer to gender equality between entrepreneurs.
- Influencity, the tool to manage influencers, opens a funding round to gathered €8M.
- Empresa investigated the state of legal Marijuana in Spain.
- Cinco dias gave us the keys to negotiate in Asia.
- Eventbrite about to open its first European development centre in Spain.
- The American AMC project to relocate from London to Madrid due to the Brexit.
- The Japanese pharmaceutical Takeda choose Madrid to establish the production of one of its new therapy.
- The German BayWa r.e. expands in Spain and Portugal and pick Madrid to open its new offices.
- The Zona Franca of Barcelona will open a center for digital innovation in 2020.
- On mobility, Cabify and Uber:
- Uber Black is now available in Madrid
- The Baleares region obliges Uber and Cabify to be contracted 30min in advance as well
- Can Barcelona permit herself not having the MWC?
- The MWC in numbers
- Lanzadera and Airbus join their forces to create aerospatial startups
- Enisa 2018 in numbers
- Coche.com will launch a “Wallapop” of used cars
- A Madrid judge sentences that Blablacar is not unfair competition to Confebus
- El referente interviewed Oriol Vinzia, CEO of Gymforless
- The trends of 2019 for investing in startups
- Cemex opens the convocation for construction startup competition 2019
- Telefónica is looking for technological startups to impulse its activity
- Via Galicia opens the inscription of its 6th edition
- Lilly and UnLtd Spain launch the 4th edition of Emprende inHealth
- The second edition of Ances Open Innovation is open
New Funding for Startups
Local fund
- Barcelona-based fintech startup inbestMe raises €1.3M
- Barcelona-based platform to hire cleaning professionals MyPoppins raises €1M
- Barcelona-based IoT startup Cobugs raises €650K
- Barcelona-based surprise travel startup FlyKube secures €400K
- Barcelona-based Iot SaaS Akiles raises €300K (€232K via The Crowd Angel), watch our podcast with their CEO to know more.
- Barcelona-based data startup Datumize secures €1.8M
- Barcelona-based electronic signature platform Signaturit raises €7M
- Donostia-san Sebastián-based neurorehabilitation based on electrostimulation startup Fesia Technology raises €750K
- Zaragoza-based customizable songs e-commerce Singerfy secures €138K
Fintech
- Cambridge-based fraud protection platform for financial services Featurespace secures €30M
- Swiss fintech startup BDR raises €13.1M
- London-based mobile banking app Starling bank raises €85.5M
- London-based cardless financial network Rapyd closes a €35M series B funding
- Copenhagen-based banking app for millennials Lunar Way raises €13M
- Manchester-based digital mortgage broker Mojo Mortgages closes a €8M series A funding
- London-based recurring payments startup GoCardless raises €66M
- Stockholm-based mobile loan app Bynk secures €48M
- Berlin-based banking SaaS Mambu secures €30M
- Copenhagen-based mobile banking app for millennials Lunar Way raises €13M
- London-based fintech startup Capitalise.com raises €4M
Medtech
- German medical Marijuana startup Cannamedical secures €15M
- Newcastle-based catheter technology startup Perfuze raises €3M
- Polish mobile molecular diagnostics device Genomtec closes a €2M round
Transportation
- Amsterdam-based electric fleet monitoring platform ViriCiti raises €6.2M
- French e-bikes startup Zoov raises €5M
- London-based shared transportation service Zeelo closes a €4.8M round
- London-based vehicles data startup Cazana raises €1.1M
Mobility
- English app, that monitors driving behaviour, Wejo raises €91M
- Paris-based car rental platform Virtuo raises €20M
- Brighton-based auto insurance startup Inshur secures €9M
Energy
- Swiss renewable energy startup DEPsys raises€11.6M
- London-based mobile charging network ChargedUp secures €1.6M
Other
- Brussels-based data platform Collibra raises €87.5M
- Paris-based SaaS omnichannel management platform for stores Wynd secures €72M
- Paris-based UX optimization startup Contentsquare raises €52.5M
- London-based intelligent risk decisions B2B startup Mimiro raises €26M
- Belgian mobile app protection startup Guardsquare raises €25.3M
- London-based SaaS platform for schools Firefly Learning secures €5.8M
- Vienna-based insurtech startup Bsurance raises €4M
- Vienna-based A.I. mobile data reading Anyline secures €2M
- Bucharest-based startup for people recognition by the way they type TypingDNA secures €1.3M
- Paris-based freelancers marketplace Malt closes a €25M round
- Stockholm-based operational AI platform Peltarion raises €18M
- Munich-based Industrial Internet of Things startup KONUX raises €11.5M
- Paris-based laundry delivery startup Lavoir Moderne secures €5M
- Berlin-based digital manufacturing solution KREATIZE raises €4M
- Paris-based cybersecurity startup YesWeHack secures €4M
- London-based web marketing platform DeepCrawl raises €2.7M
- Stockholm-based online grocery retailer MatHem raises €86M
- French insect nutrients products Ynsect closes a €110M series C
- Paris-based digital health insurance platform Alan closes a €40M series B
- French Hydrogen energy solution Ergosup raises €11M
- Amsterdam-based computer-aided diagnostics startup Aidence raises €10M
- Cambridge-based modular enterprise video platform Imagen secures €7.5M
- Berlin-based voice AI platform German Autolabs raises €7M
- Milan-based proptech Casavo closes a €7M series A
- Berlin-based customer experience management platform Zenloop raises €5.3M
- Budapest-based coding school Codecool raises €3.5M
- Brussels-based configuration data management platform Sweagle secures €2.6M
- Portuguese sales assistant startup Attentive raises €1M
Random Tech News
- Here’s why Amazon’s Super Bowl ad won’t trigger Alexa.
- Apple issues apology for major Group FaceTime bug, promises a fix next week.
- Tesla drivers are getting screwed by the polar vortex.
- I created a fake account and Facebook still figured out who I am. How?
- What smart bees can teach us about collective intelligence.
- UAE used cyber super-weapon to spy on iPhones of foes.
- Twitter cuts off API access to follow/unfollow spam dealers.
- Everything you need to know about Facebook, Google’s app scandal.
- Dropbox snares HelloSign for $230M, gets workflow and e-signature.
- Homebrew now supports Linux and Windows.
- This website uses AI to generate faces of people who don’t exist.
- How to read fiction to build a startup.
- Amazon will pay $0 in taxes on $11,200,000,000 in profit for 2018.
- How realistic are China’s plans to colonize the moon?
- Amazon could launch Amazon Go store in London.
- Tesla ‘Dog mode’ is now live to guard your pets.
- Flightradar24 — how it works?
- Don’t miss any Mobile World Congress update.
- How to spot and avoid credit card skimmers.
- Read how Google Maps’ satellite view was almost called bird view.
- Huawei presented what might be the best foldable phone, and it’s expensive.
- Pinterest files confidentially for IPO.
- Top Rank Of Most Acquisitive Unicorns.
- DoorDash raises $400M round, now valued at $7.1B.
- First human Mars mission may need onboard comedians.
Those are the February 2019 startup news!
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!
I dugg some of you post as I thought they were very useful
handy.