Barcelona Weekly Tech & Startup News – February 27, 2017 – Barcinno

Hello and Happy Monday! I hope you got some rest over the weekend…today kicks off the 2017 Mobile World Congress and 4 Years From Now events.  Monday-Wednesday, Barcinno will be leading innovation talks with SEAT in Hall 3 of the MWC (and trying to sneak out to 4YFN whenever we get a free moment).

On Tuesday night, come celebrate the 1st annual TechIcons Party @MWC! Join us for an evening of music, tech and super-yachts at Barcinno’s new home in Port Vell!

#TECHICONS TUESDAY

VIP tickets are sold out, but as of this morning there are 15 tickets remaining. Get tickets here.

Last but not least, if you haven’t picked up your 4YFN tickets, it’s not too late!

TICKETS:
Use the promo code BARCINNO_4YFN at check out to save 40% off the already discounted early bird rate! The 3-day 4YFN pass includes a 1-day pass to the MWC.

EVENTS & AFTER-PARTIES:
Barcinno’s your source for all the extracurricular activities, afterparties and networking events that take place off-MWC. We’re updating our list daily and you can add your events too!

Ok, let’s see what’s new in Barcelona’s startup scene this week:

Ok, let’s see what’s new in Barcelona’s startup scene this week: 

THIS WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS:

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Startup & Investment News

• Fintech Startup Digitial Origin is in talks to receive €150M funding to grow in Spain
• Catalonia’s Vilynx lands €5,7M investment to expand its image processing & ML tech
• Cloud service startup Enimbos closed a €3,5M investment round to accelerate growth
• Barcelona fashion social network 21 Buttons secured a €3M pre-series A funding round
• Housers raised €2,25M in its 3rd investment round to expand & develop new products
• Micropayment platform Coowry received €1M to expand its business in Asia and Spain
• Fashion app Chicisimo has secured €1M funding, Ticketbis founder amongst investors
• Barcelona’s Umaicha raised €300k on The Crowd Angel to sell tea in Spain, France & UK
• Kompyte closes new round of funding with 2 VCs & spies on every firm at MWC 2017
• Elrow secured backing of Providence Equity Partners to accelerate international growth
• Tradeinn, a Catalan sports equipment vendor, grew revenues by 50% to €75M in 2016
• Catalan PromoFarma.com reached €15M in sales in 2016, aims to double that this year
• Wallapop’s estimated value fell to $396M according to investor Vostok New Ventures
• Santander InnoVentures acquired AI startups Personetics Technologies & GridSpace
• Catalonia’s appclon is organizing an App-celeration online program for mobile startups
• “10 Spanish startups to look out for in 2017”, 8 firms in the ranking are from Barcelona
• Here are the nine startups that will pitch at the MWC TechCrunch Meetup this week
• Meet these 5 Awesome Biotechs from Barcelona at BIO Europe Spring 2017
• These are the winners of Spanish FinTech Awards 2017, 4 differerent categories
• Good overview of the Catalan Startup Ecosystem by Spanish Newspaper El País

Tech News

• What to expect at Mobile World Congress 2017 – An overview by TechCrunch
• Mobile World Congress in numbers – €465M boost for city, 100k+ visitors & 13k+ jobs
• Another big MWC-like event is coming town as Barcelona will host Gastech fair in 2018
• Barcelona startup fair 4YFN is set to grow by 60% this year, expect 20.000 visitors
• Criteo opened EU office & hub in Barcelona, will employ 300 people by end of April 2017
• Barcelona is Europe’s fifth Tech Hub according to report by Startup Ecosystem Overview
• Is Catalonia the European capital of Biopharmaceutical Industry? Numbers make the case
• Government to invest €7M in ‘Barcelona brand’ as they want to be number 1 for startups
• Spanish Government removes obstacles to the deployment of 5G, approves regulations
• Barcelona’s government launches ‘Ciberalfabetización’ project to reduce digital divide
• Why Spanish Bankers are turning from traditional banks to Fintech startups
• Catalonia’s exports go over €65,000M in 2016, the highest figure so far on record
• Wave CEO: “Spain could have a Silicon Valley too, but funding power is too far behind”
• Barcelona and Madrid host half of Spain’s technology companies, Valencia comes third
• Teléfonica wants to give back control over data to users with a new app called ‘Aura’
• CEO of Cabify speaks about his startups rollercoaster journey and taking big decisions
• Dia supermarkets’ CEO admits to sleeping on online service demand by customers
• Pedro Pablo Pérez, CEO of Telefonica’s ElevenPaths, talks about connected cars and AI
• 10 problems that Brussel sees in Spains economy – Debt, Unemployment, Low R&D

Good Reads

• GOOD READ #1: How Typeform became the world’s most popular online form creator
• GOOD READ #2: “Can raising too much capital kill your startup?”
• GOOD READ #3: 7 Tips on how to nail Seed-Stage SaaS Pricing
• GOOD READ #4: “Finding someone to risk it all together with” – Insights by Factorial CEO

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GREAT EVENTS THIS WEEK

• Mon, 27 Feb @ 19:00: Blockchain identity: digital passports to the self-sovereign worldx
• Tue, 28 Feb @ 11:00: Startupbootcamp IoT & Data Tech DemoDay @ 4YFN
• Tue, 28 Feb @ 18:30: Startup Grind BCN hosts Jeroen Merchiers (AirBnB)
• Tue, 28 Feb @ 19:00: DrinkEntrepreneurs Special MWC/4YFN
• Tue, 28 Feb @ 19:30: Women in Mobile
• Wed, 1 Mar @ 09:00: The Biz Camp Breakfast Meetup
• Wed, 1 Mar @ 18:30: Female Founder Happy Hour @ Mobile World Congress
• Thu, 2 Mar @ 19:30: High Impact Technologies, How to build the future now
• Fri, 3 Mar @ 16:00: InAppEvent – How to Reach Your App Promotion KPIs

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STARTUP JOBS IN BARCELONA