The Hottest Startups in Madrid in 2024 | EUROtoday
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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 Impact Hub.
The metropolis has seen strong development 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, basic companion at VC Ok Fund.
With Meta, IBM, Google, and Amazon all increasing within the metropolis, the primary 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 subject invoices in several codecs in several international locations. More than 30 governments throughout South America and Europe additionally insist that on-line companies report each sale to tax authorities as they occur, usually with completely 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, Rebel Fund, and Wayra. Since its launch, Invopop’s 500 enterprise clients—together with Property Management Services, Amenitiz, Fever, and Sunday—have issued greater than 1 million invoices in 25 international locations. 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 corporations that use quite a lot of fee strategies, akin to bank card billing, cell fee, and purchase now, pay later providers. It’s additionally designed for worldwide corporations that use completely different fee suppliers in separate international locations. Uelz’s platform connects with all fee gateways, together with Apple Pay, Visa, Global Payments, Klarna, Stripe, and Truust.io. It automates subscriptions and one-off funds and selects essentially the most applicable fee supplier—as an example, if charges of fee differ between international locations, Uelz will make sure the gateway with the bottom fee is used. The firm tracks funds and offers 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 firm 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” referred to as Lola. The service displays sufferers after they go away the hospital to scale back readmissions. Lola leads sufferers by way of a structured dialog and sends the outcomes to the affected person’s medical group for evaluation. 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. Offering Lola in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, Tucuvi has labored with greater than 60,000 sufferers in Spain, Portugal, and the UK, lowering hospital stays by 26 % and reducing the 30-day readmission charge by greater than 50 %. tucuvi.com
iFeel
iFeel is a office psychological well being platform geared toward corporations as a service to staff or as a part of medical insurance cowl. People speak to an AI that assesses their ranges of stress, despair, and anxiousness. It then decides what kind of consideration is required—from a web based therapist to a regular self-care well-being program. iFeel claims its therapy halves working hours missed, with 90 % of customers reporting improved emotional and psychological well-being after utilizing the service. Available in 26 languages and 30 international locations, iFeel clients embrace 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) Series B funding spherical co-led by FinTLV Ventures and Korelya Capital. The new funds will assist 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 matters, counsel assist along with your math homework, create photos, and use translation instruments. Founded in April 2023, Luzia secured a $2.5 million (£1.9 million) seed spherical in June 2023. Further 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 firm has greater than 20 million customers and 15 million app downloads, topping the Android and Apple Store charts throughout most LATAM international locations. Luzia.com
onslaught
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 corporations in 60 international locations and 50 currencies. €6.5 million ($7.2 million) preseed and seed sequence have been backed by Samaipata, 4Founders, and VentureFriends. February 2024’s €15 million ($16.6 million) Series A will fund additional worldwide enlargement. Future plans embrace creating AI for fraud detection, insurance coverage underwriting, and recommending funding alternatives. embat.io
Senniors
Senniors is an at-home care firm for aged individuals. It offers wearable tech from Fitbit to observe customers’ well being and wishes, and provides households entry to the information by way of the Senniors app. The firm additionally connects aged customers to well being care professionals when wanted, offers 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 firm 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 a web based dealer for purchasing and promoting companies, based in 2020 by Juan Ignacio García, the previous CFO at Spain’s first unicorn Cabify. Many of the businesses on the market on the platform are predominantly small on-line companies. The Boopos group 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 Partners and Ok Fund. With virtually $80 million (£60.9 million) transacted on the platform, Boopos has 5,000 lively patrons 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 displays corporations’ information because it strikes from assortment to storage. Using 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 clients minimize the price of managing information by as much as 80 per cent. Founded 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 Dawn Capital. onum.com
Shakers
Shakers is a digital workforce platform that helps corporations construct, handle, and pay groups of freelancers. It can choose a whole group from scratch or add new members to an current expertise 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 firm 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 corporations together with Inditex, Telefónica, Uber, and Microsoft and greater than 7,000 freelancers. Expansion throughout southern Europe is deliberate for 2025. shakersworks.com
This article first appeared within the November/December 2024 version of WIRED UK.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-hottest-startups-in-madrid-in-2024/