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Madrid is home to many of the nation’s corporate HQs, from Iberia through Telefónica to Repsol. As a result, the city ecosystem is geared toward launching B2B startups to serve them. Fintech and security feature strongly, “But we’re also seeing more electric vehicle startups, housing, and health” adds Alex de la Torre, head of business development at the city’s Impact Hub, the local branch of the global accelerator.
Spain’s Law for the Promotion of the Startup Ecosystem was passed at the end of 2022, offering tax breaks for startup founders, investors, and employees, plus visas to attract talent and public funding. Although “Spain doesn’t think of just one city as our tech capital,” according to Samuel Gil, managing partner at Madrid’s JME Ventures. “It’s one third Barcelona, one third Madrid and then Valencia and Andalucía.” Madrid is already ahead in attracting international talent, thanks to three prestigious international business schools and companies including Facebook, Salesforce, and Klarna opening headquarters there.
According to Paloma Castellano, director of Wayra Madrid, the new law and the growing international skill pool will help Madrid jump from a city with solid seed capital rounds and a healthy pool of serial entrepreneurs to one with unicorns, and will scale up to match.
Playtomic
“Racquet sports are a social game,” says Antonio Robert Aragonés, Playtomic’s managing director. “What makes us different is the social aspect—allowing people who don’t know each other to play together, while using a ‘Playtomic level’ designed to level the playing field in the same way as a golf handicap matches golfers.” Founded late 2017 by three local entrepreneurs Felix Ruiz Hernandez, Pablo Carro and Pedro Clavería as a booking app for padel courts, a game that combines elements of tennis and squash, its grown to become a software-as-a-service meets social network for racquet sports, and claims it connects 3.1 million players across 4,800 clubs, totalling 21,000 courts over 49 countries. Having raised €67 million from investors including GP Bullhound, FJ Labs and Claret Capital Partners, May 2023 saw it reach profitability and acquire Portuguese rival AirCourts, with 0.5 million users. Strong in Spain, Italy, Nordics, the Middle East, and Benelux, it’s looking to develop the padel market in Germany, the UK, US, and Asia. playtomic.io
Idoven
Thirty percent of all clinical trials in the world recruit patients in Spain, according to Dr. Manuel Marina Breysse, Idoven’s CEO and cofounder, thanks to a simplified Ethics Committee Approval system, low approval fees, and a high response rate from the population. Hence, healthcare startups flourish in Madrid. Back in 2014, the cardiologist joined a research project at Spain’s cardiovascular research institute the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III, where he met cofounder José María Lillo Castellano, a telecoms engineer. They developed an algorithm that could predict atrial fibrillation (an irregular heartbeat) from an electrocardiogram reading. “Any time there is a heart check, you have an ECG,” he explains. “This could be at a company health check, if you visit A&E, or even from your fitbit.” They founded Idoven in 2018, building a cloud-based platform to host their algorithm where clinicians can upload data from over 60 cardiac monitoring devices. The company raised €28.5 million from investors including Insight Partners, Northzone, and Wayra. Currently focused on hospitals, they are also working with Google and AstraZeneca to use Fitbits to reduce readmission from heart attack patients, and have a beta version in development for Apple Watch. idoven.ai
Foundspot
When brothers José and Manuel Postigo Hernández, and friend David Sanz found a lost camera in Madrid, they used its photos to track the owner. That inspired them to invest their savings in launching Foundspot, a free-to-use lost-and-found platform. Items are uploaded to the site or app using keywords—type of item, place lost, colors, date—and Foundspot’s AI matches descriptions, then contacts the original owner. “We also retrieve pets,” José adds. “We want to reunite people with the things they care about.” At launch they partnered with Madrid taxi firms and Spanish airline Iberia. Other airlines, hotels, and tourist municipalities followed. The combination of ad revenue, business subscriptions, and donations from individuals grew turnover until, in 2019, the company could donate 30 percent of profits to cancer research and Latin American NGOs. In 2020, Foundspot introduced a property shipping service and, in 2023, the company is expanding in the US and Italy, with Latin America next in 2024. foundspot.com
Bdeo
Founded by Julio Pernía and Manuel Moreno because they “detected a shift in policyholder behavior that the industry was failing to respond to,” Pernía explains. “They demanded a more digital, remote and immediate experience.” Bdeo provides “visual intelligence” to the insurance industry—policyholders can take pictures or videos of damage to cars or homes using their smartphone, and then send the images to their insurance company. Bdeo’s AI assesses the severity and repair costs, cutting the time spent appraising claims by 50 percent. In June, the company raised €7.5 million, bringing total funding €10 million from the likes of Íope Ventures, a new investment vehicle launched by Wayra and Telefónica Seguros, Blackfin, Big Sur and K Fund. Fifty insurers across more than 25 countries already use Bdeo’s technology and, in Spain, the company manages more than 50 percent of motor insurance underwriting. The new funding will fuel international expansion across Europe and Latin America. bdeo.io
Devengo
In 2019, Devengo’s cofounders Fernando Cabello-Astolfi and Alberto Molpeceres launched a salary advance service—allowing employees to draw against their salary before payday. The pandemic slowed the company’s growth, and in 2022 the founders made a sharp pivot to instant payments. Most B2B or B2C payments still use traditional banking “rails”—the systems run by high street banks which can take days to clear payments. Devengo’s API can accurately and securely identify both sides of a transaction in seconds so that money transfers instantly. The company has raised €2.9 million from Venture City and Fides Capital in four rounds, the most recent in November 2022. devengo.com
Samara
Spain has the most hours of sunshine per year in Europe, but very few household solar panels—only 70,000 of the country’s six million homes have them fitted. Samara, founded by Bulb’s Iván Cabezuela and Manel Pujol Olivares in May 2022, aims to encourage uptake by simplifying the process. Samara offers an online 3D design tool for customers as well as rental options to try before you buy. Consumers can save up to 70 percent on their electricity bill while contributing to a cleaner environment. The company has raised €6.5 million to develop technology—including batteries and EV chargers—from Seaya Ventures and Pelion Green Future, and aims for one million installations in the next three years. samara.energy
TaxDown
Returning to Spain from Silicon Valley consultancy jobs, Álvaro Falcones, Joaquín Fernández and CEO Enrique García launched TaxDown after being inspired by the tax advice software they’d used in the US. TaxDown’s software links to an API provided by the Spanish tax authorities and takes 12 minutes to file taxes, calculate deductions and claim rebates. The company says its proprietary algorithm saves more than €400 on average per return. Since its 2019 launch, the company has raised a total of €14.6 million from the likes of JME Ventures and Atresmedia, boasts over one million Spanish users and is launching in Mexico this year. taxdown.es
Beemine Lab
Founder and CEO Telmo Güell picked up on the health food trend for mixing CBD with natural honey—CBD is an anti-inflammatory while honey is an antiseptic and a moisturizer that can help the skin absorb CBD. Worried about the global bee colony collapse, he founded cosmetics brand Beemine Lab in 2018, with 10 percent of profits going to bee protection charities. Spain bans oral CBD, so all Beemine Lab products are topical, with skin and hair care products sold through its app and in pharmacies across Spain, Japan, Belgium, Italy, France, and Germany. Having raised €1.2 Million from Faraday Venture Partners and Keith Ventures the company expects to grow its turnover to €2.8 million by the end of 2023, double the number of pharmacies taking its product, and plans to expand into South America. thebeeminelab.com
Velca
In February 2020, Velca’s cofounders CEO Emilio Froján, Jose Álvarez, César Flores, Marta Rosell and David Ruiz pooled their savings to launch an electric scooter powered by a battery that could be removed and charged indoors. Then the pandemic struck, but by the end of the year they’d crowdfunded €750,000 in four hours—a record for Spain—and now have funds of €6.9 million through crowdfunding and angel investors. Velca now has eleven models, distribution in Portugal and France, and estimates it has saved over 27.5 million kgs of CO2 with its vehicles. Ambitions for 2023 include bringing all manufacturing into Spain. velcamotor.com
Clikalia
Madrid’s instant property buyer Clikalia, founded by Alister Moreno and Pablo Fernandez, was based on the iBuyer (or instant buyer) model—large companies with lots of capital on hand who can make a quick cash offer on a home to speed up the selling process. Sellers upload their property to Clikalia’s app, it values their home within 24 hours and—if it decides to buy—pays cash within seven days. Clikalia then does renovations or improvements, and resells around 70 percent of the properties it buys, renting out the rest. It reached break-even within four months and raised a record Spanish series B round of €460 million in 2021. With funding now past €983 million thanks to SoftBank, Luxor Capital and Fifth Wall, it’s expanded across Portugal and Mexico, and is working towards an IPO within three years. CEO Moreno is eyeing a listing in the US. clikalia.es
This article appears in the January/February 2024 issue of WIRED UK magazine.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
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