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Having spent many years playing second fiddle to Barcelona, Madrid overtook its Catalan cousin in 2023 with startups securing investment of €605 million ($672 million) up from €457 million ($507 million). million dollars) of Barcelona. “A lot of Latin American talent is arriving thanks to Telefónica’s recent entrepreneur visas and talent programs to attract promising startup founders from Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela,” explains Bu Haces, innovation consultant at the Impact Hub in Madrid. .
The city has seen strong growth in transportation, mobility and fintech startups over the past three years with AI and deep tech powered by a staggering 56 universities. “Business schools in particular are providing a lot of networking opportunities for startups and are interested in developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Miguel Arias, general partner at VC K Fund.
With Meta, IBM, Google and Amazon expanding in the city, the main concern is the lack of housing for the flood of students, engineers and entrepreneurs. “We need more accessible housing if we continue like this,” warns Haces.
Invopop
When Invopop co-founder and CTO Sam Lown worked as CTO for Cabify, a Latin American rival to Uber, he found that the company had to issue invoices in different formats in different countries. More than 30 governments in South America and Europe also insist that online companies report each sale to tax authorities as they occur, often with different reporting rules. “I thought it would be great to send all of that to one place and have the company take care of it,” he explains. Invopop’s platform converts sales into electronic invoices and reports them to the local tax authority in the correct format. With CEO Juan Moliner Malaxechevarría, Lown raised €2.2 million ($2.4 million) from Y Combinator, Rebel Fund and Wayra. Since its launch, Invopop’s 500 business clients, including Property Management Services, Amenitiz, Fever and Sunday, have issued more than one million invoices in 25 countries. This year they launched the Invopop app, which connects to Slack, Chargebee, and Google Drive. invopop.com
uelz
Uelz is designed to simplify online payments for businesses using a variety of payment methods, such as credit card billing, mobile payment, and buy now, pay later services. It is also designed for international businesses that use different payment providers in different countries. Uelz’s platform connects with all payment gateways including Apple Pay, Visa, Global Payments, Klarna, Stripe and Truust.io. Automate subscriptions and one-time payments and select the most appropriate payment provider; For example, if commission rates vary between countries, Uelz will ensure that the gateway with the lowest commission is used. The company tracks payments and provides data to sales teams and finance departments. Co-founded by Xandra Etxabe and María Luke Astigarraga (former Atlético de Madrid goalkeeper), Uelz has raised €2 million ($2.2 million) from Angels Capital and Wayra. The company will expand to Latin America in 2025. uelzpay.com
Tucuvi
Tucuvi is a healthcare technology company that offers voice-based conversational AI and a “virtual nurse” called Lola. The service monitors patients after they leave hospital to reduce readmissions. Lola guides patients through a structured conversation and sends the results to the patient’s medical team for review. Co-founded by María González Manso and Marcos Rubio in 2019, the company secured €5.5 million ($6.1 million) in funding from the European Innovation Council. By offering Lola in Spanish, Portuguese and English, Tucuvi has worked with more than 60,000 patients in Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom, reducing hospital stays by 26 percent and reducing the 30-day readmission rate by more than 50 percent. hundred. tucuvi.com
I feel
iFeel is an occupational mental health platform aimed at companies as a service to employees or as part of health insurance coverage. People talk to an AI that assesses their levels of stress, depression and anxiety. Then decide what type of care is needed: from an online therapist to a standard self-care and wellness program. iFeel claims its treatment halves lost work hours, and 90 per cent of users report an improvement in their emotional and mental wellbeing after using the service. Available in 26 languages and 30 countries, iFeel clients include Glovo, Insud Pharma, Cabify, TravelPerk, Spotahome and H&M. Launched in 2020 by co-founders CEO Amir Kaplan, COO Martin Villanueva Ordas and Gabriele Murrone, the startup has raised €40 million ($44 million), with a recent Series B investment round of €20 million euros (22 million dollars) co-directed by FinTLV. Ventures and Korelya Capital. The new funds will support international expansion. ifeelonline.com
Luzia
Luzia, created by Spanish engineer Álvaro Higes, is an artificial intelligence personal assistant based on WhatsApp and Telegram that uses OpenAI and Meta’s Llama to provide a ChatGPT-style service. Luiza can research topics, suggest help with her math homework, create images, and use translation tools. Founded in April 2023, Luzia raised a $2.5 million (£1.9 million) seed round in June 2023. Additional rounds: $10 million (£7.6 million) series A in September 2023 and $19 million ( £14 million) series A1 in April 2024—are funding international expansion. The company has more than 20 million users and 15 million app downloads, topping the Android and Apple Store charts in most LATAM countries. Luzia.com
ram
Embat co-founders Antonio Berga and Carlos Serrano García-Lisón worked together at JP Morgan where, Berga says, “we saw clients struggling to manage multiple banks and banking platforms. It took hours.” They founded Embat with Tomás Gil, former CTO of Fintonic, in August 2021 to centralize financial operations on a cloud-based platform for 600 companies in 60 countries and 50 currencies. Samaipata, 4Founders and VentureFriends backed the pre-seed and seed series worth €6.5 million ($7.2 million). The €15 million ($16.6 million) Series A in February 2024 will fund further international expansion. Future plans include developing AI for fraud detection, insurance underwriting and investment opportunity recommendation. embat.io
Seniors
Senniors is a home care company for seniors. It provides wearable technology from Fitbit to monitor users’ health and needs, and gives families access to data through the Senniors app. The company also connects older users with health professionals when necessary, offers a longevity program in partnership with Fitbit and insurer Klinc to improve activity, sleep and emotional well-being. Co-founded in November 2020 by Claudia Gómez Estefan and José de Diego Abad, Senniors raised €5.3 million ($5.8 million) in a seed round led by SixThirty Ventures. The company has provided 800,000 hours of home care to more than 40,000 families in 100 Spanish cities. The US expansion is planned for 2025. hello.senniors.com
Boopos
Boopos is an online broker for buying and selling businesses, founded in 2020 by Juan Ignacio García, former financial director of Cabify, the first unicorn in Spain. Many of the businesses for sale on the platform are predominantly small online businesses. The Boopos team vets them and makes sure they are profitable and have been running for the past two years. Garcia has raised $20m (£15m) in three rounds led by Bonsai Partners and K Fund. With almost $80m (£60.9m) traded on the platform, Boopos has 5,000 active buyers and 200 deals for sale, and will break even by the end of the year. “We want to scale,” says García. “There’s a wave of baby boomer business owners retiring and selling.” boopos.com
Onum
Onum is a cloud-based platform that monitors companies’ data as it moves from collection to storage. Using artificial intelligence algorithms, Onum detects anomalies, potential security risks, and system issues. It also helps “separate the noise from the signal,” identifying what needs to be discarded, archived or analyzed, and claims customers reduce the cost of managing data by up to 80 percent. Founded in October 2022 by Pedro Castillo, former CEO of cybersecurity unicorn Devo, he is joined by co-founders Lucas Varela and Pedro Tortosa. Onum closed two financing rounds totaling €38 million ($42 million) led by Kibo Ventures and Dawn Capital. onum.com
agitators
Shakers is a digital workforce platform that helps companies create, manage and compensate teams of freelancers. You can select an entire pool from scratch or add new members to an existing talent pool. Founded 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 company claims its revenue has increased 350 percent over the past two years. Charging companies for access to the platform, it has worked with more than 600 Spanish companies including Inditex, Telefónica, Uber and Microsoft and more than 7,000 self-employed workers. Expansion throughout southern Europe is planned for 2025. shakersworks.com
This article first appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of WIRED UK.