Spanish technology companies want to make the leap into the international market and to do so they are merging with each other to gain strength or are carrying out M&A operations with foreign companies. In April, in addition to the big purchase of Privalia by Vente Privée, we have seen other operations such as the merger between Wallapop and Letgo in the US or the purchase of the Spanish company HallStreet by TimeOut.
The Bionaturis Group continues its growth process through acquisitions and has decided to acquire Zip, specialised in the development of technologies for the production of peptides and recombinant proteins with applications in the biotechnological, pharmaceutical, veterinary and industrial sectors.
The e-health sector is coming to our country, according to a study carried out by Startupxplore, the number of startups in the eHealth sector grew by 53% in 2015 compared to the previous year. In addition, we have already seen the first mergers and acquisitions in the eHealth...
Private equity is investing in companies that provide software solutions for portfolio management. Efront has been bought by Brige point and Gi Partners bought MRI Software, both of which were bought after the technology companies had made buyouts in the sector.
Two days ago we learned that the video game chain Game bought the augmented reality company Ads Reality, the big tech companies like Facebook and Microsoft are investing a lot of money in the sector and companies like MagicLeap, which has not yet released any product on the market, has raised more than $1.42B. In Spain, a good number of startups have embarked on the adventure of developing products and technologies based on Virtual and Augmented Reality.
The energy storage industry is seeing an increase in terms of new and innovative products, partly due to the entry of large companies from different sectors entering the energy storage sector. Among the benefits of energy storage are that in addition to storing electricity that is not consumed at the time of generation, they facilitate greater integration of renewables, help reduce line congestion, improve the quality of electricity supply and optimise the consumption curve.
Cybersecurity has become a sector of great interest to investors in recent years. Valuable company information is migrating to digital channels and the cloud and companies are experiencing data breaches that can have many consequences for their business. From 2011 to 2015 the number of funding rounds in the cybersecurity space has doubled from 166 to 332 and the volume has increased from $1.1B in 2011 to $3.8B in 2015.
Last week we learned that Cinven completed the largest Spanish VC deal in recent years by buying Hotelbeds for €1.165M, and Mytwinplace also closed a round led by Inveready.
Yesterday we learned that Global Fashion Group has received €300M in a round led by the giant Rocket Internet, which wants to consolidate its "fashion" division. Spain is also investing in online fashion startups, in recent months, in addition to the purchase of Privalia by Vente-privee, we have detected several companies in the fashion world in niches such as children's clothing or menswear that have received funding, such as Offemily and Fashiop.
In 2016 venture capital and private equity raised €1,481M in new funds. This year 2016 seems to continue to meet the favourable conditions for fundraising: liquidity in the markets, interest from international LPs in VC&PE firms and support for the sector through public funds of funds (Innvierte and Fond-ICO global). We have recently heard about new fundraising: N+1 has raised €400M for its new fund and Capitana Ventures Partners is raising new funds for Capitana Tech Fund.
The Finnish giant has seen the opportunity that the e-health sector can offer and has bought the company Withing for $170M. The E-health sector has a lot of potential: the market is demanding it and this makes investors interested in the sector.
According to the OECD, Spain is in the top 10 countries with the highest development in the biotechnology sector. Although we are far from the top centres such as Boston, Silicon Valley, London or Switzerland, the news is encouraging, after a few years in which the scarce access to funding in the sector made things difficult. In the last two years we have witnessed how Spanish biotech companies are obtaining amounts of funding not seen before in the sector.