These series of posts are a compilation of what has happened in the spanish startupsphere within and outside our borders. As part of our efforts to promote Startup Spain movement, we want to increase the exposure of the our startup ecosystem. If you want to contribute, please do not hesitate to ping us on Twitter @startspain with any news you want us to feature here. Thank You!
If you want to learn more about what has happened lately in Spain, you can read last month’s post HERE.
July was yet another tough month here in Spain. The Eurozone crisis has not lightened up, and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy came out with even more austerity measures to try to cut the budget deficit. This new package included the removal of a tax rebate for home buyers, a scaling back of unemployment benefits, elimination of bonuses for public workers, consolidation of local governments, and perhaps the most talked about stipulation, the increase of the VAT (Value Added Tax) from 18% to 21%. Although these measures may go a long way to helping Spain lower its budget deficit and meet the goals laid out by the EU, they are certainly not going to be easy on Spanish consumers in the short term.
Nast Marrero, here! Last week we launched Startup Spain‘s first program: the Angel School. Our take is: it’s been a great beginning for Startup Spain. We had more than 60 attendees of which more than 2/3 were potential investors.
This is an unusually large display of interest in the Spanish investment arena, where most events see no more than 20 or some participants maximum. Mentoring Angel Investors to better navigate their deal analysis is a keystone in fostering ITC startups in Spain. The program was a real marathon: 10+ hours of training (don´t worry we let them stop for lunch . Thankfully, our first group of graduates proved to be up to the challenge, taking advantage of all the different elements of the day.
Missing from the program were the typical made-up miracle cures and formulas. We strived to keep the content practical, following the Tetuan Valley Way with hands-on exercises and significant mentors’ experiences
The event was hosted @ the awesome facilities of Madrid International Lab and kicked off by Iñaki Ortega, Director of Madrid Emprende, and one of the main forces behind Startup Spain. In his opening speech, Iñaki brought up the importance of joining private and public efforts to facilitate and develop entrepreneurial activity, and the key role those efforts will play in the long-run global competitiveness of Spain.
Two roundtables with rockstar speakers cherry-topped the program: one from Investors already Angel Investing and another from Entrepreneurs. Each of them gave invaluable insights on what it is they look for, value, and ask during an early stage investment.
The investors’ roundtable was moderated by our very own Alex Barrera (co-founder of Tetuan Valley & CEO of Press42), and formed by:
Both roundtables aimed to give participants a overview of the ecosystem, showcasing startups from their seed stage through founders that have already made an exit, with similar ranges of experiences coming from the Angel investors, from managers that were just launching their first investment through those who have been in the game for a while.
Given the success and the of the program and the importance we place on such event to foster investment culture we’re already iterating on the feedback from the first event to run a LEGENDARY second edition of Startup Spain Angel School on March 22nd. Wanna get your tickets? Check here!
We had the pleasure of following all the twitter interactions of the event through Zoomry, now in it´s beta stage. The product is awesome and if you check #AngelSchool Social Media @ AngelSchool.Zoomry.com… You can see for yourself they’re up to something big!
You might want to check the slides of our presentations in our slideshare or check the pictures in our flickr group.
@StartupJedi here! Today tons and tons of news and breaking ones. First of all were on the COVER of OnMadrid (El País)… How coooool is that?! @jmcobian and @Timpik_com‘s Camilo rocking the news! As I told you previously, last Wednesday we had an awesome night of romance at Okuri Spaces: Speed-Dating Startups (#datingstartups). Around 60 daters showed up all well dressed and perfumed looking for their co-founding soulmate.
Last week, our friend Mario Lopez de Avila, was planning to set “The Bit and the Bizz” with Wayra in February to get bizz guys and bit guys acquainted, but when they caught wind of Tetuan Valley Entrepreneur Speed-Dating realized that this was no solo job. Thanks to them we all joined efforts and applicants to make this night a success. It was really heart-warming to see how a lot of friends from the startup community expressed their interest to push a common event.
So, to the event: First of all you HAVE TO check the coolest social media summary of the event done with Zoomry’s beta. It’s maaagic! All the tweets, RTs and noise surrounding SpeedDating have been broken down, even MBAs can understand it! Check it now and here!
Cobi kickstarted the event with a lot of news about what is going on in Okuri (the Tetuan Valley mothership):
Speed-Dating-Startups: this kind of events add value for everyone in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, and we are set to join-efforts with our peers to make it a common cause and tour it around our different headquarters. Next session will probably be @ Wayra‘s house
Orange Wednesdays: every week there’s something awesome going on at Okuri Spaces on Wenesday evening. Next Wends 25th January 2012 – 19:00, Okuri Talk: “Emprender con Sentido” by Juan Carlos Arrese, a great StartupBootcamp mentor and executive coach that will lead on how to hone your mindset for success. Tickets here
Kauffman Global Partnership Network: Okuri has been selected as inaugural partner of Kauffman’s global network. Meaning we’re in the game with the greatest organization on entrepreneurship research and support
Startup Spain Angel School: with our shinny brand new logo and Madrid Emprende as four first sponsor we are launching Startup Spain Angel School: THE workshop for those people wanting to get into internet startup angel investing. It will be hosted by Madrid Emprende @ Madrid International Lab, 9th February 2012… Get more info about it
The webs of Startup Spain and Tetuan Valleyare looking for web-design geniuses to perform some serious plastic surgery. If you’re up to this epic challenge… tweet us or ping us.
WOoOOOW! That was a hell of an infomercial… eeuuughh… But lets get back to yesterday’s event. There was a lot of interesting people hanging in the Hackers’ Guild. As Mario tweed:
@nodosenlared: At TV Entrepreneur Speed Dating! 94 registered, 33 Bits, 61 Bizz… Let them kiss!
We ended up with more than 60 people here! By the looks on some of their faces as they were leaving I’d say they really got their money’s worth… Actually, the event was free, but you know what I mean.
Let me mention some of the peers that have supported the event and helped us hustling it around the cloud to make it such a blockbuster:
. Thankfully, our first group of graduates proved to be up to the challenge, taking advantage of all the different elements of the day.
