The month of October has closed with € 32.11 million invested in startups, in a total of 17 Spanish public operations, and in which two of them have not made their amounts official. A figure that places the accumulated investment in technology in the year 2019 at € 733.65M, a figure slightly lower than the year 2018 at the end of the same month (€ 767M), if we omit the Letgo investment round.
In number of operations, the year 2019 stands at 160 compared to 173 in 2018, very similar figures both in millions of euros and in number of operations. It will be difficult to overcome the barrier of one billion euros at the end of this year, so the total accumulated will be very similar to last year … Regarding the main rounds, two operations that exceed 5 million euros stand out. The most important is that of Ravenpack, which has closed an operation of 9 million euros thanks to the GP Bullhound and Whisbi fund, which announced last October 11 an operation of 5 million euros led by Cipio Partners. Other important rounds of the month of October that have exceeded one million euros have been Situm (€ 3M), World Mastery (€ 3M) or ID Finance, Fundsfy and Venvirotech all of them with operations of € 2M.
RavenPack
The RavenPack technology company has received 10 million dollars (9’01 million euros) from GP Bullhound, an investment that it will use for two main objectives: to grow in the Asian continent and enter other sectors beyond financial services . The RavenPack data analysis platform is used by leading hedge funds and fund managers globally. This platform uses artificial intelligence to create sentiment indicators from news and social networks. These in turn connect to the trading systems of financial institutions.
Whisbi
The startup has closed a Series B financing round of 5 million euros led by the Cipio Partners fund, which joins other investors of the Catalan firm like Active & BDMI. Whisbi has developed a conversational sales platform aimed at large companies in order to capture, qualify and convert potential customers for companies that want to increase their sales.
World Mastery
The World Mastery edtech company has raised a 3 million Euro Series A financing round in an operation led by Nauta Capital, the European venture capital fund. The startup covers learning needs of both professionals and teachers, as well as non-academic education centers, thus providing access to specialized high-quality courses taught by teachers in different categories such as tennis, basketball, dance, yoga, fitness, cooking or hairdressing. . Through the World Mastery platform, customers access tools and videos that enhance their educational development. International experts, such as Toni Nadal, Božidar Maljkovi, or Kim Kimble, endorse and bet on these contents. “We feel fortunate to create products and services that foster high quality education, as a key piece for a better world,” said Aniol Brosa, co-founder and CEO of World Mastery.
Situm
The technology company of location, navigation and monitoring of interiors, has captured 3 million euros. The capital injection will allow the company to accelerate its growth and undertake its international expansion plan. This round has been led by Swanlaab Venture Factory, a Spanish-Israeli manager with offices in Madrid and Tel-Aviv, along with Prosegur Tech Ventures, Corporate Venture Capital of Prosegur, the world’s leading security company. Likewise, Amadeus, Unirisco and Xesgalicia have also participated – under the Ministry of Economy, Emprego and Industry of the Xunta de Galicia.
Fundsfy
The neobank created for investors, has closed its first round of investment worth 2.2 million euros. The operation coincides with its commercial start-up and with an outbound promotion that includes three free months for the first 5,000 users who register on its platform. The company was born with the philosophy of facilitating access to investment and neobank services from a single application.
ID Finance
The company, which offers financial services to people who do not have access to banking services, has closed in a week a round of financing of 2 million euros. This fintech, which is based in Barcelona and operates throughout Europe and Latin America, raised more than 1.8 million euros of collective financing, specifically from 150 investors, in a matter of minutes, after the launch of its campaign in Crowdube . In line with this, in the midst of strong demand from investors, he got two million euros in less than a week.
VEnvirotech
The biotechnological startup, which produces biodegradable bioplastic from organic waste, has closed an investment round of more than 2 million euros, which have been contributed mostly by the family office of the Gassó family (former owners of Gaes). The operation, which closed last August, will allow the start of a 3,100 square meter production plant in Santa Perpètua de la Mogoda, in the province of Barcelona.
Outvise
Barcelona’s Outvise startup is in a moment of transition after raising a financing round of 1.2 million euros. The platform, which has been active for three years, had to go through a previous period of exploration and validation of the concept before launching the project in 2016. During the last fiscal year closed, Outvise reached a turnover of 5 million euros gross in 2018 with more than 10,000 work days delivered that same year with the prospect of growing an additional 25% during the year 2019.
Mondobets
The first online betting house with a professional fantasy football league, has closed a round of financing of more than 1 million euros (€ 1,040,688) thanks to the contribution of 159 investors through Fellow Funders. With this operation, the online alternative financing platform achieves, so far this year, financing three projects with rounds exceeding one million euros, something not easy if we take into account that these platforms today are still a great unknown for thousands of investors, as indicated by the company. In all of them they have had contributions ranging from 300 euros by small retail investors, to clips of more than 100,000 euros by qualified reference investors.
ApetEat
ApetEat and its meal delivery service to offices has closed a round of financing of 1 million euros led by the investment funds Big Sur Ventures and All Iron Ventures. Both funds join the list of investors of this startup, which has been selected to participate in Lanzadera, the accelerator of the owner of Mercadona, Juan Roig. With the recent € 1M injection, the startup and its online business lunch service, known as Lunch As A Benefit (lunch as a benefit for employees, subsidized by the company), wants to strengthen its expansion and growth strategy: “ We want to settle in the Spanish market and invest in talent, strengthen our sales and technology teams, and continue to improve a product that we think still has a long history, ”said Pablo Samaranch, co-founder of ApetEat.
Cledara
It has raised a total of 835,000 euros in a round of financing thanks to the investment of agents such as Techstars or Chris Adelsbach. This round will be aimed at helping companies manage their spending on SaaS. The startup develops software that allows companies to track and manage the use and expense of SaaS, including a detailed analysis to help understand if the money is spent correctly. Prior to the financing round, Cledara has had the support of the strategic association Anthemis and BBVA.
Acqustic
The startup that allows emerging musicians to boost their musical career, has closed an investment round of 650,000 euros in which several venture capitals such as Toushka Capital, Lanai Partners or BBooster Ventures were added. This round also involved family offices such as Acom Ventures, which invested in Badi, the Brisa Records label or the music business school International Music Business School. As well as business angels from the IESE forum, ESADE and EAE Invest. From the all-in-one application, users can find more than 150 concert offers per month, upload their music to the main streaming platforms such as Spotify and legally bill all their performances.
Erudit AI
The artificial intelligence startup has achieved 500,000 euros of seed fund in its first 3 months of existence thanks to The Venture City, Lontananza Investments and Business Angels. The company incorporated in the United States and based in Madrid, is already part of the Growth program of The Venture City. Its SaaS allows to manage the well-being of large staff of workers in real time. Thanks to the neural networks of its own creation, it collects the information that employees generate during the workday, transforming this data into knowledge about their emotional state and personality.
Happybox
The Spanish startup focused on the use of artificial intelligence technology and chatbots for the last mile, has closed an investment round of 400,000 euros through Crowdcube. The investment will be used to accelerate the growth of Happy Box focusing on four pillars: continue to improve its software through Artificial Intelligence technology, hire new strategic profiles, open new international markets and intensify its marketing work. In the financing round, 226 investors from 32 nationalities participated.
Neki
A total of 230,812 euros is what has raised this project in its last round of financing. At the beginning of the month, the startup aimed to reach 180,000 euros, an amount that has been exceeded thanks to the intervention of Ship2B and the European Investment Fund through Equity4Good, and its contribution of 50,000 euros. The round has been closed through Startupxplore and has had a total of 97 investors who have invested with a minimum ticket of 1,000 euros.