Barcelona Startup News September 16

Hello and happy Monday! Let’s get to business:

Startup Grind BCN hosts Chad West (Revolut)Tomorrow (Sept 17th)  Startup Grind is featuring the CMO of one of Europe’s hottest fintech startups – Revolut. Discover the secrets of their success during the fireside chat and take advantage of the open-mic & networking opportunities. Get 40% off your ticket with the code: barcinnorocks The Future Of Work Is Coming To BCN On September 26-27th, OuiShare is organizing the first edition of Reshaping Work – a meeting point to discuss the future, work, and a new social contract. Get your tickets here.Ok, that’s it from me. Have a great week and we’ll see you out there!

Join Startup Grind next week to learn the secrets of startup marketing from Chad West, CMO of Revolut. Save 40% with the code: BarcinnoRocks

Ok, let’s take a look at the latest Barcelona startup news from this week: 

THIS WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS:

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BARCELONA STARTUP NEWS

Startup & Investment News

Investment News

• Spanish startup Soto Solar receives over €100M
• US startup Ori, run by Spanish CEO Hasier Larrea, raises €18M
• Spanish pet care product marketplace Tiendanimal closes a €12.5M investment round
• Catalan biopharma company Ability Pharmaceuticals lands a €3.5M investment
• Spanish biotech startup Vivebiotech gets €3.5M
• Barcelona invoicing SaaS Quipu secures a €2M investment and appoints new CEO
• Spain-based firm Kenmei Technologies closes a €1M investment round
• Barcelona startup Vytrus Biotech raises €500K
• Spanish startup GreyHounders receives a €200K investment
• Barcelona energy and blockchain startup FlexiDAO secures funding from SET Ventures and opens HQ in Amsterdam
• Catalan proptech startup SmartFincas closes a seed round

Startup News

• Catalan fintech startup Kantox announces a strategic partnership with BNP Paribas
  
• Wallapop’s valuation has been lowered to €200M according to latest figures
• Glovo is active in 26 countries and 200 cities with over 35K riders
• A detailed look at Glovo’s latest numbers & risks by El ConfidencialCatalan insurtech startup 
• Brokoli is closing down
• Overview of Spanish pet tech startups
  

VC, investment & crowdfunding news

• Barcelona-based digital venture hub InnoCells co-leads €5M investment round in Israeli startup Kovrr
• Galdana Ventures and Altamar Capital Partners are closing in on new €400M fund of funds to invest in US, Asian and European VC firms
• InnoVentures, Banco Santander’s VC fund, increases the value of its portfolio to €135M
• ENISA received 1,132 financing requests for a total of €255M so far this year, a 26% and 35% increase respectively compared to the same period last year

Open calls, accelerator news & incubator stories

• Bind 4.0 is an acceleration program looking for startups developing Industry 4.0 solutions. Apply until 13th of Sep

Barcelona startup profiles, interviews & success stories

• CreatSens: the health care platform spin-off from a local university
• Optimus Price: using AI to find the best price for your products
• Socourt: an app to relive the best plays of your sports matches
• Syna Therapeutics: the joint venture for the development of biopharmaceutical products

Tech News

• Barcelona is the gateway to Latin America for Europe’s startups
  
• Barcelona could become one of the 10 innovation-leading cities worldwide, but needs a coordinated institutional & legislative framework to get there
  
• BCN3D Technologies and IED Barcelona bring additive manufacturing to over 1400 students
  
• Barcelona Activa appoints Félix Ortega as new General Director

PSD2 extension in Spain

• The Bank of Spain gives payment service providers more time to adapt to the requirements of the PSD2 regulation
  
• Here are more insights into why the move was to be expected

Telefónica in trouble?

• Telefónica share price hits the lowest rate in 22 years as internal level of concerns grows
  
• Telefónica to cut 5.000 jobs in Spain to lower costs

To tax (tech) or not to tax

• AMETIC, an association representing the digital technology industry in Spain, asks the Government to wait for an OECD decision on how to tax tech firms instead of imposing a tax on its own already
  
• El Mundo wrote a detailed article showing potential benefits and pitfalls of introducing a tech tax

More tech stories affecting all of Spain:

• President of the Spanish fintech association calls for more support for fintech startups and the launch of the sandbox
  
• Inditex is now the largest online fashion retailer in the world after reaching €3.1B in sales in 2018
  
• How Spanish online media are faring after starting to charge readers for access to their platforms 

Good Reads

• “Silicon Valley is not the model we want for Spain”, Francisco Polo, Spain’s Secretary of State for Digital Advance
• The start-up bubble
  
• Analysis of car accidents in Barcelona using Pandas, Matplotlib, and Folium
  
• Do’s and don’ts when building early stage startups

Good Videos and Podcasts

• Interview with Juan Zamora, CEO of Signaturit
  
• Interview with Dan Kragt, new CEO of Quipu
  
• Interview with Marta Zanchi, PhD, Investor, Founder and Managing
• Partner at Barcelona VC Nina Capital

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GREAT EVENTS THIS WEEK

This week

• Tue, 17 Sep @08:30: Esmorzar de Finançament: El crowdequity a la pràctica. Estructuració, due diligence i governança
• Tue, 17 Sep @15:00: Hacking Health: Artificial Pancreas Meet-up in Barcelona
• Tue, 17 Sep @18:30: Startup Grind BCN hosts Chad West (Revolut)
• Wed, 18 Sep @09:00: European Funds And Programs For Social Enterprises
• Wed, 18 Sep @18:30: Barcelona Global 7th Hola Barcelona! Cocktail
• Thu, 19 Sep @19:00: DrinkEntrepreneurs #37 With Demium
• Thu-Fri, 19-20 Sep: Finance 4.0

Next week

• Wed, 25 Sep @08:30: DiadaTic 2019: Technology Empowering People
• Thu, 26 Sep @18:30: [LGBT+Tech] Lightning talks!
• Thu, 26 Sep @19:00: H/F Barcelona – Let’s talk about tech startups
• Thu, 26 Sep @20:00: Business Matching Party
• Thu, 26 Sep @09:30: Conference on Technological Innovation in the agricultural sector
• Thu-Fri, 26-27 Sep: Reshaping Work Barcelona
• Fri-Sat, 27-28 Sep: JAM Conference
• Fri-Sat, 27-28 Sep: Global Travel Hackathon – Barcelona edition

See the full Event Calendar here

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STARTUP JOBS IN BARCELONA

Job of the Week: If you feel like a Front-end Jedi, join the Marfeel Force you must! Marfeel is an ad tech platform that revolutionizes the way publishers create, optimize and monetize mobile websites! Apply here

• Global Elite Pay is recruiting a Personal Assistant (Bilingual)
• Chimpy is hiring a Business Developer
  
• Marfeel is looking for a Front End Jedi
  
• Bourbon Creative is hiring a Digital Marketer

See the full Job Board here

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Barcelona Startup News September 16, 2019 covers all the latest stories about Barcelona’s Tech & Startup scene from September 16th, 2019 until September 22nd, 2019. If you want to read more stories about the city’s startup, tech and innovation scene, check out all Barcelona startup news here.