Having spent a few years as second fiddle to Barcelona, Madrid surpassed its Catalan cousin in 2023 with startups securing €605 million ($672 million) funding above Barcelona’s €457 million ($507 million). “Lots of Latin American talent is arriving thanks to the recent entrepreneur visa and talent programs run by Telefonica to bring promising startup founders from Mexico, Argentina, Columbia, and Venezuela,” explains Bu Haces, innovation marketing consultant at Madrid’s Affect Hub.
The town has seen stable progress in transportation, mobility, and fintech startups over the past three years with AI and deep tech supercharged by an astonishing 56 universities. “The business schools in particular are providing lots of startup networking opportunities, and are keen on developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Miguel Arias, common associate at VC Ok Fund.
With Meta, IBM, Google, and Amazon all increasing within the metropolis, the principle fear is lack of housing inventory for the flood of scholars, engineers, and entrepreneurs. “We need more accessible housing if we continue like this,” Haces warns.
Invopop
When Invopop cofounder and CTO Sam Lown labored as CTO for Cabify, a Latin American rival to Uber, he discovered that the corporate needed to situation invoices in several codecs in several nations. Greater than 30 governments throughout South America and Europe additionally insist that on-line companies report each sale to tax authorities as they occur, typically with totally different reporting guidelines. “I thought it would be great to send all that to one place and have a company deal with it,” he explains. Invopop’s platform converts gross sales into digital invoices and studies them to the native tax authority within the appropriate format. With CEO Juan Moliner Malaxechevarría, Lown raised €2.2 million ($2.4 million) from Y Combinator, Insurgent Fund, and Wayra. Since its launch, Invopop’s 500 enterprise prospects—together with Property Administration Providers, Amenitiz, Fever, and Sunday—have issued greater than 1 million invoices in 25 nations. This yr they launched the Invopop App, which connects to Slack, Chargebee, and Google Drive. invopop.com
Uelz
Uelz is designed to simplify on-line funds for firms that use a wide range of fee strategies, comparable to bank card billing, cellular fee, and purchase now, pay later providers. It’s additionally designed for worldwide firms that use totally different fee suppliers in separate nations. Uelz’s platform connects with all fee gateways, together with Apple Pay, Visa, World Funds, Klarna, Stripe, and Truust.io. It automates subscriptions and one-off funds and selects probably the most applicable fee supplier—as an example, if charges of fee differ between nations, Uelz will make sure the gateway with the bottom fee is used. The corporate tracks funds and supplies information to gross sales groups and finance departments. Cofounded by Xandra Etxabe and María Luke Astigarraga (the previous goalkeeper for Atlético Madrid), Uelz has raised €2 million ($2.2 million) from Angels Capital and Wayra. The corporate is increasing into Latin America in 2025. uelzpay.com
Tucuvi
Tucuvi is a well being tech firm providing a voice-based conversational AI and “virtual nurse” known as Lola. The service screens sufferers after they go away the hospital to scale back readmissions. Lola leads sufferers by means of a structured dialog and sends the outcomes to the affected person’s medical workforce for assessment. Cofounded by María González Manso and Marcos Rubio in 2019, the corporate obtained €5.5 million ($6.1 million) in funding from the European Innovation Council. Providing Lola in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, Tucuvi has labored with greater than 60,000 sufferers in Spain, Portugal, and the UK, decreasing hospital stays by 26 % and reducing the 30-day readmission fee by greater than 50 %. tucuvi.com
iFeel
iFeel is a office psychological well being platform geared toward firms as a service to workers or as a part of medical insurance cowl. Folks speak to an AI that assesses their ranges of stress, melancholy, and nervousness. It then decides what kind of consideration is required—from an internet therapist to an ordinary self-care well-being program. iFeel claims its remedy halves working hours missed, with 90 % of customers reporting improved emotional and psychological well-being after utilizing the service. Accessible in 26 languages and 30 nations, iFeel prospects embody Glovo, Insud Pharma, Cabify, TravelPerk, Spotahome, and H&M. Launched in 2020 by cofounders CEO Amir Kaplan, COO Martin Villanueva Ordas, and Gabriele Murrone, the startup has raised €40 million ($44 million), with a latest €20 million ($22 million) Collection B funding spherical co-led by FinTLV Ventures and Korelya Capital. The brand new funds will help worldwide enlargement. ifeelonline.com
Luzia
Luzia, created by Spanish engineer Álvaro Higes, is a WhatsApp- and Telegram-based AI private assistant which makes use of OpenAI and Meta’s Llama to supply a ChatGPT-style service. Luiza can analysis subjects, counsel assist together with your math homework, create footage, and use translation instruments. Based in April 2023, Luzia secured a $2.5 million (£1.9 million) seed spherical in June 2023. Additional rounds—$10 million (£7.6 million) sequence A in September 2023 and $19 million (£14 million) sequence A1 in April 2024—are funding worldwide enlargement. The corporate has greater than 20 million customers and 15 million app downloads, topping the Android and Apple Retailer charts throughout most LATAM nations. Luzia.com
Embat
Embat cofounders Antonio Berga and Carlos Serrano García-Lisón labored collectively at JP Morgan, the place, says Berga, “we were seeing clients struggling to manage multiple banks and banking platforms. It took hours.” They based Embat with Tomás Gil, ex-CTO at Fintonic, in August 2021 to centralize monetary operations on a cloud-based platform for 600 firms in 60 nations and 50 currencies. €6.5 million ($7.2 million) preseed and seed sequence had been backed by Samaipata, 4Founders, and VentureFriends. February 2024’s €15 million ($16.6 million) Collection A will fund additional worldwide enlargement. Future plans embody creating AI for fraud detection, insurance coverage underwriting, and recommending funding alternatives. embat.io
Senniors
Senniors is an at-home care firm for aged folks. It supplies wearable tech from Fitbit to watch customers’ well being and desires, and offers households entry to the info by means of the Senniors app. The corporate additionally connects aged customers to well being care professionals when wanted, supplies a long life program in partnership with Fitbit in addition to insurer Klinc to enhance exercise, sleep, and emotional well-being. Cofounded in November 2020 by Claudia Gómez Estefan and José de Diego Abad, Senniors raised €5.3 million ($5.8 million) in a seed spherical led by SixThirty Ventures. The corporate has supplied 800,000 hours of dwelling care to greater than 40,000 households in 100 Spanish cities. US enlargement is deliberate for 2025. hola.senniors.com
Boopos
Boopos is an internet dealer for purchasing and promoting companies, based in 2020 by Juan Ignacio García, the previous CFO at Spain’s first unicorn Cabify. Lots of the firms on the market on the platform are predominantly small on-line corporations. The Boopos workforce vet them, whereas ensuring they’re worthwhile and have been working for the final two years. García has raised $20 million (£15 million) in three rounds led by Bonsai Companions and Ok Fund. With virtually $80 million (£60.9 million) transacted on the platform, Boopos has 5,000 energetic consumers and 200 companies on the market, and can break even by the tip of the yr. “We want to scale,” says García. “There’s a wave of baby boomer business owners retiring and selling up.” boopos.com
Onum
Onum is a cloud-based platform that screens firms’ information because it strikes from assortment to storage. Utilizing AI algorithms, Onum spots anomalies, potential safety dangers, and system points. It additionally helps “separate the noise from the signal,” figuring out what must be discarded, archived, or analyzed, and claims prospects lower the price of managing information by as much as 80 per cent. Based in October 2022 by Pedro Castillo—former CEO of cybersecurity unicorn, Devo—he’s joined by cofounders Lucas Varela and Pedro Tortosa. Onum closed two rounds of funding for a complete of €38 million ($42 million) led by Kibo Ventures and Daybreak Capital. onum.com
Shakers
Shakers is a digital workforce platform that helps firms construct, handle, and pay groups of freelancers. It will probably choose a whole group from scratch or add new members to an present expertise pool. Based by CEO Héctor Mata, COO Nico de Luis, CPO Adrián de Pedro, and COO Jaime Castillo in 2021, Shakers has raised €7 million ($7.7 million) in rounds led by Brighteye Ventures, Adevinta Ventures, and Wayra. The corporate claims it has grown 350 % in income previously two years. Charging companies for entry to the platform, it has labored with greater than 600 Spanish firms together with Inditex, Telefónica, Uber, and Microsoft and greater than 7,000 freelancers. Enlargement throughout southern Europe is deliberate for 2025. shakersworks.com
This text first appeared within the November/December 2024 version of WIRED UK.
