The month of January marks the start of the accumulated Spanish public investment and it does so with figures very similar to those of January 2019. The month ends with an accumulated €48.47M invested in a total of 22 public operations compared to €61.57M in 2019 in a total of 16 operations. These figures are a far cry from those of January 2018, where the year began with 24 investment rounds with a cumulative total of €214M, thanks in part to one of the most important rounds carried out in Spain: that of Cabify of €130M, along with those of iSalud (30), Hawkers (20) and Red Points (10).
One of the most important rounds in January 2020 was that of the energy company Enertika, the only company that closed a round above €10 million (12 to be exact) Susi Partners participated in this round, contributing €10 million, along with Caixa Capital Risc, the ICF, Avançsa and Enisa, which contributed the remaining two. After the energy company round, that of ByHours stands out, having raised €8 million thanks to the entry of capital from various international funds including Angel Ventures, DILA Capital and Howzat Partners. The rest of the rounds closed in the seed phase, which is good news as new companies close their first investment rounds, a previous step to prepare series A or pre-series A. If you are interested in finding out more about the Spanish investment ecosystem, don’t miss our 2019/2020 El Referente Investment Guide.
PUBLIC OPERATIONS
BYHOURS: the hotel room reservation platform by the hour, closed a new round of international financing of €8 million. The company, founded by Christian Rodriguez and Guillermo Gaspart, allows the reservation of micro-stays in more than 3,000 hotels around the world in packs of 3, 6 and 12 hours, where the user chooses the time of entry and exit, 24 hours a day. With this new round, BYHOURS wants to consolidate its presence in Europe, Latin America and in-flight interconnection points in the Middle East, as well as to start operations in the United States.
Bob.io: the company that finds its origin in the frustration and difficulty that often comes with traveling with luggage, has closed a financing round of €3 million. Its main objective is to solve the problem of the airports of the future (becoming major bottlenecks) but, the one of this operation in particular, is to expand internationally and continue developing new services to meet the demand of its customers, including door-to-door service.
eGoGames: raised €3 million in a series A round led by investors such as Donato González, president of the Société Générale Group in Spain and Portugal, Francisco Riberas, president of Gestamp and Jaime Martín Laborda, founding partner and CEO of Millennial Gaming. With this capital injection, eGoGames will optimize its algorithm with the use of Artificial Intelligence, in order to create competitions that have the ability to adapt to the player and improve their user experience; it will also focus its efforts on the B2B business.
Room007: €3 million was the figure obtained by the startup thanks to Banco Santander’s Smart Fund. The operation implies that the entity will provide the company with strategic financing for its growth. Thus, Room007 will consolidate its expansion in the Iberian Peninsula, with Europe as a future objective. This first tranche of three million Euro is actually a phase to reach €15 million, an amount that both parties to the agreement have set as a goal. Santander will begin the round through the Smart Fund, which specializes in creating value in leading companies for their development and growth in new markets.
Beonprice: this innovative solution in the hospitality sector announced the closing of a series A financing round worth €2.5 million, in which the venture capital fund Adara Ventures was the main investor. Based in Salamanca with offices in Madrid, Barcelona, Mexico City and Bogotá, the technology company plans to invest the funds to increase its product team, strengthen its leadership position in Spain and Latin America and expand in Europe.
Boxmotions: The company started the year by closing a capital increase of €2.4 million. It was invested by Fitalent (Everis Venture Capital), Castel Capital, Finaves, Inveready, Athos, The Crowd Angel and Media Digital Ventures. This financing round will be used to continue the expansion in Spain and to start activities in Valencia, as well as to consolidate the markets of Barcelona and Madrid. In addition, the company’s internationalization and growth in Paris (Europe’s second largest market), where Boxmotions has been operating since September 2019, will also be strengthened.
MediQuo: the eHealth app MediQuo closed an investment round of €2 million in January with this new operation, in which all current shareholders participated, mediQuo intends to continue its momentum as a leading company within the Spanish medical startup scene. With this capital increase, mediQuo incorporates a new co-CEO in its management team: Bruno Cuevas, former Vice President of Global Markets of Adevinta/Schibsted.
Nomo: the fintech platform that integrates in a single app the financial services and business management tools for the self-employed and freelancers, will receive €1.8 million from Banco Sabadell throughout 2020. The startup, created at the end of 2018 within InnoCells, Banco Sabadell’s venture builder, operates independently from the Bank and has its own team of 12 employees.
Arthrex Biotech: the startup raised a seed round worth €1.5 million through Invivo Ventures. In addition to the venture capital specialized in startups in the biotechnology sector, specifically medical devices and digital health, the round was attended by the European Investment Fund, Fond-ICO Global, the Catalan Institute of Finance (ICF) and the Valencian Institute of Finance. The biotech company will invest the capital raised in optimizing its therapy with the intention of carrying out regulatory studies and the first clinical trials in humans in 2022.
Docuten: the Galician company raised a total of €1.5 million in an operation. GoHub, Ultramar and Neocapital were the main investors in the company from A Coruña, which promotes the digitalization of administrative processes through digital signature, electronic invoicing and collection automation services. Thanks to this capital injection, Docuten will continue to improve its product and deepen its international expansion strategy, especially in the European market. Currently the company centralizes its activity in its headquarters in A Coruña, Madrid and London.
The Crowd Angel: the company obtained €1.3 million to continue investing in startups. To date, €19 million have been invested through the platform in a total of 46 startups, including Glovo (Delivery), Pangea Aerospace (Spacetech), Amadix (Biotech), Buguroo (Cybersecurity), Stayforlong (Travel) or Innovamat (EdTech).
Triporate: in January the startup announced a new capital increase of €1.3 million, in which it once again had the support of its previous partners, Aurorial and Bankinter, and also gave entry to Reus Capital, Archipiélago Next, Tokavi, and Top Seed Lab with its Travel Tech 1 fund.
EthicHub: €1 million was the figure quoted by the startup in an operation supported as a reference partner by BIDLab, the innovation laboratory of the Inter-American Development Bank. It will contribute $600,000 for the development of new platform functionalities, expand the number of small producers eligible for new loans and bring a first EthicHub pilot to a second country. Collaborative also stands out as a reference investor, an important entity in the world of impact investment in Mexico.
Hangry: a startup that aims to turn VTCs into real mobile stores; that is Hangry, the startup that raised €1 million. Created by Wassim Berro and Maurice Karam, the company was born as an academic project and has already obtained this first seed capital investment from Demium Startups, Sego Finance, Archipélago Next and business angels such as Martín Varsavsky and Félix Ruiz.
Le Room Service: the Seville-based startup closed the second round of investment worth €620,000. The operation involved BStartup from Banco Sabadell and Cartera de Inversiones CM, as well as all its previous partners: Faraday Venture Partners and business angels in the sector. The company has indicated that it will use the investment to consolidate its position in Spain, with the imminent opening of Barcelona and Majorca, and to prepare its international expansion for the beginning of 2021, in addition to its digitalization.
SolverML: the Valencian startup obtained €600,000 in its last round of investment. Global Omnium participated with €500,000 of the total investment through GoHub Ventures, which acted as Lead Investor. The round was possible thanks to the co-investment with Zriser group.
Tribaldata: €500,000 was raised in the first round by the consumer data provider for the software industry, which has received this capital from a bulk investment by several former Singularity University business angels. An operation in which Enisa also participated with a participating loan of €125,000.
Zinklar: the Catalan startup also reactivated €500,000. The Catalan Institute of Finance (ICF) invested this half million Euro in Zinklar through the ICF Venture Tech II Fund, a fund aimed at technology-based startups. The ICF Venture Tech II has been set up in 2019 as a 20 million Euro venture capital fund aimed at technology and innovation companies in advanced early stages and series A.
Mister Fantasy: the online football game closed a €300,000 round led by Encomenda, the fund co-founded by Carlos Blanco and Oriol Juncosa. This platform has millions of registered users and hundreds of thousands of assets. Mister Fantasy is positioned as the online football game that has grown the most this season.