May has seen a resumption of investment in startups as the month closed with €70.89 million invested in a total of 23 public operations, to which two more operations have been added, of which the amount of the round has not been exceeded (Transeop and Ninety Nine). The month reaches the second highest figure for 2020 after February with €137M of investment and places the accumulated investment for the year above €300 million (304,908M Euro), the worst accumulated result in the last four years, partly as a result of the COVID19 crisis.
The most important round in May was that of Wallbox. The Barcelona-based electric charger company has closed a second part of €12 million from a Series A investment. 23 million, led by Seaya Ventures, with additional investment from Endeavour Catalyst and Iberdrola. In addition, during the month of May other Series A investment rounds stand out, such as that of Belvo one of €9.09 million, that of Accure Therapeutics of €7.6 million; or that of Cubiq Foods of €4 million.
INVESTMENT ROUNDS
Wallbox: the Barcelona-based electric charger company has closed a second €12 million part of a Series A investment; the total round comes to €23 million. The round was led by the Seaya Ventures venture capital fund, with additional investment from Endeavour Catalyst or Iberdrola. The funds will be used to drive Wallbox’s international growth in China and North America, and to further expand its technological innovation and R&D efforts. Wallbox began its expansion into the China and North American markets in 2019. With its Wallbox FAWSN Charging Systems Co Ltd., a joint venture with Changchun FAWSN of China, Wallbox manufactures EV chargers for the Chinese market in Suzhou, 100 km west of Shanghai. The initial capacity in Suzhou is 100,000 chargers per year.
Belvo: The company closed a $10 million (9.09 million) financing round to continue the growth of its financial API platform for developers in Latin America. The round was led by Founders Fund (one of the first investors in companies such as Facebook, SpaceX, Stripe, Airbnb, Spotify and Twilio) and Kaszek Ventures (one of the first investors in companies such as Nubank, Konfio, QuintoAndar, Creditas, Kavak and NotCo).
Fundsfy: the neobank created for investors, closed its first round of investment worth €7.6 million. The operation was led by the venture capital management company Alta Life Sciences and supported by the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (CDTI). The company will develop a portfolio of drug candidates for the treatment of CNS diseases, with the support of a team with extensive and consolidated experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry at the head of its operations.
Cubiq Foods: the Spanish company that develops in vitro grown fats for industrial food production, has received an investment of €5 million from Blue Horizon Ventures and Moira Capital Partners. This funding will help the company in the production of sustainable fats on an industrial scale, which it will also make available to national and international markets at the end of this year.
Anfix: the management tool for companies with more than 15,000 users, has successfully closed a financing round of more than €4 million for its investment in projects to transform accounting management in Spain. With this capital injection, Anfix will accelerate work on the development of technology based on the new collaborative accounting model. This model allows companies to manage accounting processes in real time, in a more efficient manner and allowing for totally remote work. Furthermore, as it is a 100% cloud-based technology, it allows the use of paper to be eliminated.
Bloobirds: the company that markets technology for sales prospecting, has closed a capital round of €3 million, led by the British venture capital fund PROfounders and the Spanish K Fund and Encomenda. Bloobirds has designed a software to guide the process of sales prospecting in companies working for other companies (B2B).
Giants Gaming: the company under the umbrella of the Vodafone club, closed an investment round of €3 million. A deal that had only one investor, the Sánchez Cortázar Group, owned by José Antonio Sánchez Cózar, and which represents a boost to the international expansion of one of the first clubs to jump into Europe, whose annual turnover amounts to 3.4 million. Giants Gaming will use the resources from the round to increase investment in teams that compete outside Spain. They are also planning to develop new products that will help them continue to globalize their brand and diversify their sources of income.
Sales Layer: the company has closed a €3.5 million Series A round led by the European corporate investor Sonae IM, the technology investment arm of the multinational Sonae, which has a diverse portfolio of market leading brands, particularly in retail and telecommunications. The Spanish Israeli private equity fund Swanlaab Venture Factory and the corporate investor Global Omnium also joined this round. This funding will allow Sales Layer to expand its international operations, invest in sales and marketing, expand its operational infrastructure to meet demand growth, and strengthen its customer service team.
Woom: the technology company dedicated to women’s health closed its fourth investment round of €2 million. With this new capital injection, FemTech will continue to focus its efforts on accompanying women throughout their lives, from monitoring their cycle, through trying to conceive, pregnancy and postpartum, to menopause. This new round, led by Brightcap Ventures with Begin Capital as co-investor, will be aimed at expanding the technical startup team, with a clear focus on data science and machine learning.
Gyala Therapeutics: the startup founded by Hospital Clínic de Barcelona-IDIBAPS and which develops new CAR-T therapies for the treatment of malignant blood diseases, has closed a round of €1.5 million. The operation was led by the Barcelona-based venture capital firm Invivo Ventures, one of the most renowned biomedical venture capital firms in Spain.
Mascoteros: the company specializing in pet products based in Barcelona has closed a €1 million financing round to expand its service offering and consolidate its growth. The transaction was led by Atresmedia and Antai Venture Builder. The company has other partners of reference in the Spanish entrepreneurship and venture capital sector such as David Masó, co-founder of Promofarma and Kibo Ventures. In addition, Mascoteros’ innovation strategy is supported by aid from public bodies such as Enisa, ICF and ICO.
Corify Care: the startup has obtained a €1 million grant from the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (CDTI) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the Cervera Transfer R&D Projects. The funds will be used to develop ACORYS, the device that uses technology developed at the Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón and the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia to improve the effectiveness and treatment of atrial fibrillation in a non-invasive way. In this way, it will be possible to improve the treatment of the more than 10 million patients with this cardiac arrhythmia in Europe alone.
Zecardio: the company dedicated to discovering drugs that can cure cardiovascular diseases for which there are no treatments, has successfully closed an investment round of €800,000 to take the development of its molecules to more advanced stages. Carried out through a crowdfunding campaign at Capital Cell, Europe’s leading online investment platform specializing in biomedicine, the round has already attracted more than 400 investors. The Catalan biopharmaceutical company has outlined this capital increase to develop its three lines of research in cardiovascular medicine, one focused on cardioprotection, another on cardioregeneration and a third focused on the study of genetically based cardiomyopathies.
Erudit IA: the startup that develops unique machine learning models, focused on the study of personality, mental health and the work environment, has closed a round of €600,000 thanks to the support of DraperB1 (Spain VC); Encomenda Smart Capital (Spain VC); Archipelago Next (Spain VC); and Bizrupt (Mexico VC). Founded by Alejandro Martinez and Ricardo Michel Reyes, the strartup will use the resources obtained to cover the process between the launch of the SaaS and the conquest of a consistent product fit market.
Akiles: Barcelona-based company Akiles has closed a €600,000 financing round, with the investment vehicles Kabil Capital and Mnext Venture Capital (advised by the fund Meridia Capital Partners). Other investors have also strengthened positions in the company. The main objective of the round is to consolidate the company’s leadership in the office, coworking and holiday rental housing categories. In the first quarter of 2020, Akiles was positioned as the best Internet-connected access management system, capturing the same number of spaces as it did throughout 2019.
Ironchip: creator of cybersecurity products based on geolocation, Ironchip has successfully closed its first round of funding worth €500,000. It was led by Inveready and EASO Ventures and advised by the legal team of Lawesome Legal Services. With the entry of this capital, the company intends to improve the development of its product and start the international commercialization of the Ironchip Location Based Security platform, or LBS, focusing on the markets of Latin America, Europe and the United States.
Cuidkers: the platform that aspires to be the manager of families, obtains €300,000 in its first round of financing. The platform aspires to position itself as an increasingly large community of family managers, but today it cannot find a place to share information and find specific solutions for managing the most complex projects: their families. The project, developed by three enterprising women, Paloma Monereo, Ana Monereo and Regina Gonzalez-Dopico, as well as their CEO, Jorge Segado Obesso, focuses on the work done by all those who manage their families as a fundamental nucleus of support, also during this health crisis.
Datos 101: Bewater Funds and Faraday have invested in Spanish firm Datos 101, which specializes in cloud data backup for businesses, for its international expansion into Portugal, Italy, and Central Europe. To this end, Bewater Funds launched the Bewater Datos 101 FICC fund. This is a closed-end mutual fund with a capacity of €300,000. The capital injection by the venture capital firm Faraday Ventures Partners has not been quantified at this time.
Sailwiz: the investment round of €155,000 will allow Sailwiz to continue its growth in the nautical tourism sector. The operation was closed by several of the current partners, the three founders of the startup and six new investors. It was also complemented with an ICO loan of €50,000. SAILWIZ was created in 2017 as a platform that puts boat skippers who organize trips by sea in contact with people who want to enjoy nautical experiences on their holidays.
TUUP: TUUP has closed an investment round of €150,000 thanks to the influence of its CEO Tania Grande, psychologist and entrepreneur. Since she publicly presented the opening of the round in mid-February, Grande gained the confidence of a group of investors who injected this amount thanks to the endorsement of her professional reputation. To date, the company is valued at €1.5 million.
Smile and Learn: Equity4Good, the impact investment vehicle managed by Ship2B and supported by the European Investment Fund (EIF), reaffirms its commitment to the edtech sector and joins Smile and Learn with an investment of €100,000 in the form of a convertible note which, together with operations from other investors already closed and totaling half a million, will become a future round planned for the end of the year. Smile and Learn is a platform that offers personalized education to improve the learning of children from 3 to 12 years through interactive content.
Transeop: TRANSEOP signed a new entry into its partnership with the company UNDANET, which specializes in offering technological solutions. This is a strategic decision with which TRANSEOP, once it has managed to consolidate itself as a leading company in the online contracting of groupage and full load transport services, aims to increase the technological level of the services it offers to its clients.
Ninety Nine: this platform, focused on the financial sector, has closed a seed phase investment round in which three venture capital funds have participated, according to the CEO of Ninety Nine, Javier Sanz, three venture capital funds: Breega Capital (owned by Société Générale), Ethos Capital and Two Culture Capital- as well as executives from Banco Santander and Citibank. Likewise, the Ninety Nine platform, which is also supervised by the CNMV, launched last Friday the first Spanish broker with zero fees.