Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
#2It's very anecdotal but at Spreedly (my company) we are integrated to around 90 different payment gateways globally and are payments infrastructure. So we have a lot of startup interest. In Europe Spain is second only to the UK in terms of prospects and customers. Sadly I've been told this is may partially because youth unemployment is so high that you might as well start something vs wait around. But either way a headline like this doesn't surprise me as we've clearly seen a large amount of entrepreneurial activity out of Spain.
Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
#3I think the startup scene is growing quite rapidly here (Barcelona) however from my perspective it seems that a lot of founders are from abroad and it saddens me a little as there is a great wealth of talented people here that could be founders or technical founders they just don't seem to realise it!
Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
#4It's very anecdotal but at Spreedly (my company) we are integrated to around 90 different payment gateways globally and are payments infrastructure. So we have a lot of startup interest. In Europe Spain is second only to the UK in terms of prospects and customers. Sadly I've been told this is may partially because youth unemployment is so high that you might as well start something vs wait around. But either way a he…
>> Sadly I've been told this is may partially because youth unemployment is so high that you might as well start something vs wait around.
Same thing in Portugal. You either emigrate or start your own company.
Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
#5I think the startup scene is growing quite rapidly here (Barcelona) however from my perspective it seems that a lot of founders are from abroad and it saddens me a little as there is a great wealth of talented people here that could be founders or technical founders they just don't seem to realise it!
Culture mix is not bad at all, and I think that's one of the key factors that differentiates Barcelona from other Spanish cities like Madrid or Valencia.
There're are many reasons why a large number of founders and developers end up in Barcelona, and the city in itself is a big one.
Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
#6Can anybody comment on the impact the abysmal economy over there has had on the startup scene?
My hypothesis is that the absolute lack of jobs for young people would lead to more startups as necessity is the mother of invention, but it could be that the more immediate day-to-day of putting food on the table might distract from that.
Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
#7It's very anecdotal but at Spreedly (my company) we are integrated to around 90 different payment gateways globally and are payments infrastructure. So we have a lot of startup interest. In Europe Spain is second only to the UK in terms of prospects and customers. Sadly I've been told this is may partially because youth unemployment is so high that you might as well start something vs wait around. But either way a he…
...youth unemployment is so high that you might as well start something vs wait around
Not only youth. And there's the figure of the fake autónomo: companies force their employees to act as a provider to save taxes and regulations, threatening with firing them.
The worst cases are those in which the company first do this, then "fire" them anyway, avoiding the severance pay and letting the fired without unemployment rights.
Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
#8This just scratches the surface of what could really be. Spain still is in general a hostile country for entrepreneurs with an anti-innovation government famous for awful decisions like:
- Regulating heavily crowdfunding rendering it unusable
- Eliminating stock options' fiscal incentives [0]
- Taxing the sun in order to protect energy lobbies from solar energy. [1]
- Trying to get a cut from Google News because they're worth it, pass a law for it, and then trying to retract in only few weeks once they saw the page views metrics go south...
etc..
Hopefully things will get better once the current ruling party leaves the government in the upcoming December elections. Hopefully...
[0] http://novobrief.com/stock-options-in-spain-startups/
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/08/19/out-...
Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
#9For those interested, here's another article with average salary for engineering jobs in Barcelona: http://novobrief.com/tech-developer-jobs-salaries-barcelona/
Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time
#10I think the startup scene is growing quite rapidly here (Barcelona) however from my perspective it seems that a lot of founders are from abroad and it saddens me a little as there is a great wealth of talented people here that could be founders or technical founders they just don't seem to realise it!
they just don't seem to realise it
Learned powerlessness.