The Hottest Startups in Madrid in 2024

Having spent galore years arsenic 2nd fiddle to Barcelona, Madrid surpassed its Catalan relative successful 2023 with startups securing €605 cardinal ($672 million) concern supra Barcelona’s €457 cardinal ($507 million). “Lots of Latin American endowment is arriving acknowledgment to the caller entrepreneur visa and endowment programs tally by Telefonica to bring promising startup founders from Mexico, Argentina, Columbia and Venezuela,” explains Bu Haces, innovation advisor astatine Madrid’s Impact Hub.

The metropolis has seen coagulated maturation successful transportation, mobility and fintech startups during the past 3 years with AI and heavy tech supercharged by an astonishing 56 universities. “The concern schools successful peculiar are providing tons of startup networking opportunities, and are keen connected processing an entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Miguel Arias, wide spouse astatine VC K Fund.

With Meta, IBM, Google and Amazon each expanding successful the city, the main interest is deficiency of lodging banal for the flood of students, engineers and entrepreneurs. “We request much accessible lodging if we proceed similar this,” Haces warns.

Invopop

When Invopop co-founder and CTO Sam Lown worked arsenic CTO for Cabify, a Latin American rival to Uber, helium recovered that the institution had to contented invoices successful antithetic formats successful antithetic countries. More than 30 governments crossed South America and Europe besides importune that online businesses study each merchantability to taxation authorities arsenic they happen, often with antithetic reporting rules. “I thought it would beryllium large to nonstop each that to 1 spot and person a institution woody with it,” helium explains. Invopop’s level converts income into physics invoices and reports them to the section taxation authorization successful the close format. With CEO Juan Moliner Malaxechevarría, Lown raised €2.2 cardinal ($2.4 million) from Y Combinator, Rebel Fund and Wayra. Since its launch, Invopop’s 500 concern customers—including Property Management Services, Amenitiz, Fever and Sunday—have issued much than 1 cardinal invoices successful 25 countries. This twelvemonth they launched the Invopop App, which connects to Slack, Chargebee and Google Drive. invopop.com

Uelz

Uelz is designed to simplify online payments for companies that usage a assortment of outgo methods, specified arsenic recognition paper billing, mobile outgo and bargain now, wage aboriginal services. It’s besides designed for planetary companies that usage antithetic outgo providers successful abstracted countries. Uelz’s level connects with each outgo gateways including Apple Pay, Visa, Global Payments, Klarna, Stripe and Truust.io. It automates subscriptions and one-off payments and selects the astir due outgo provider—for instance, if rates of committee alteration betwixt countries, Uelz volition guarantee the gateway with the lowest committee is used. The institution tracks payments and provides information to income teams and concern departments. Co-founded by Xandra Etxabe and María Luke Astigarraga (the erstwhile goalkeeper for Atlético Madrid), Uelz has raised €2 cardinal ($2.2 million) from Angels Capital and Wayra. The institution is expanding into Latin America successful 2025. uelzpay.com

Tucuvi

Tucuvi is simply a healthtech institution offering a voice-based conversational AI and “virtual nurse” called Lola. The work monitors patients aft they permission infirmary to trim readmissions. Lola leads patients done a structured speech and sends the results to the patient’s aesculapian squad for review. Co-founded by María González Manso and Marcos Rubio successful 2019, the institution obtained €5.5 cardinal ($6.1 million) successful backing from the European Innovation Council. Offering Lola successful Spanish, Portuguese and English, Tucuvi has worked with much than 60,000 patients successful Spain, Portugal and the UK, reducing infirmary stays by 26 percent and cutting the 30-day readmission complaint by much than 50 percent. tucuvi.com

iFeel

iFeel is simply a workplace intelligence wellness level aimed astatine companies arsenic a work to employees oregon arsenic portion of wellness security cover. People speech to an AI that assesses their levels of stress, slump and anxiety. It past decides what benignant of attraction is needed—from an online therapist to a modular self-care wellbeing program. iFeel claims its attraction halves moving hours missed, with 90 percent of users reporting improved affectional and intelligence wellbeing aft utilizing the service. Available successful 26 languages and 30 countries, iFeel customers see Glovo, Insud Pharma, Cabify, TravelPerk, Spotahome and H&M. Launched successful 2020 by co-founders CEO Amir Kaplan, COO Martin Villanueva Ordas and Gabriele Murrone, the startup has raised €40 cardinal ($44 million), with a caller €20 cardinal ($22 million) Series B concern circular co-led by FinTLV Ventures and Korelya Capital. The caller funds volition enactment planetary expansion. ifeelonline.com

Luzia

Luzia, created by Spanish technologist Álvaro Higes, is simply a WhatsApp and Telegram-based AI idiosyncratic adjunct which uses OpenAI and Meta’s Llama to supply a ChatGPT-style service. Luiza tin probe topics, suggest assistance with your mathematics homework, make pictures and usage translation tools. Founded successful April 2023, Luzia secured a $2.5 cardinal (£1.9 million) effect circular successful June 2023. Further rounds—$10 cardinal (£7.6 million) bid A successful September 2023 and $19 cardinal (£14 million) bid A1 successful April 2024—are backing planetary expansion. The institution has much than 20 cardinal users and 15 cardinal app downloads, topping the Android and Apple Store charts crossed astir LATAM countries. Luzia.com

Embat

Embat co-founders Antonio Berga and Carlos Serrano García-Lisón worked unneurotic astatine JP Morgan where, says Berga, “we were seeing clients struggling to negociate aggregate banks and banking platforms. It took hours.” They founded Embat with Tomás Gil, ex-CTO astatine Fintonic, successful August 2021 to centralize fiscal operations connected a cloud-based platform for 600 companies successful 60 countries and 50 currencies. €6.5 cardinal ($7.2 million) pre-seed and effect bid were backed by Samaipata, 4Founders and VentureFriends. February 2024’s €15 cardinal ($16.6 million) Series A volition money further planetary expansion. Future plans see processing AI for fraud detection, security underwriting and recommending concern opportunities. embat.io

Senniors

Senniors is an at-home attraction institution for aged people. It provides wearable tech from Fitbit to show users’ wellness and needs, and gives families entree to the information done the Senniors app. The institution besides connects aged users to healthcare professionals erstwhile needed, provides a longevity programme successful concern with Fitbit arsenic good arsenic insurer Klinc to amended activity, slumber and affectional well-being. Co-founded successful November 2020 by Claudia Gómez Estefan and José de Diego Abad, Senniors raised €5.3 cardinal ($5.8 million) successful a effect circular led by SixThirty Ventures. The institution has provided 800,000 hours of location attraction to much than 40,000 families successful 100 Spanish cities. US enlargement is planned for 2025. hola.senniors.com

Boopos

Boopos is an online broker for buying and selling businesses, founded successful 2020 by Juan Ignacio García, the erstwhile CFO astatine Spain’s archetypal unicorn Cabify. Many of the companies for merchantability connected the level are predominantly tiny online firms. The Boopos squad vet them, portion making definite they are profitable and person been operating for the past 2 years. García has raised $20 cardinal (£15 million) successful 3 rounds led by Bonsai Partners and K Fund. With astir $80 cardinal (£60.9 million) transacted connected the platform, Boopos has 5,000 progressive buyers and 200 businesses for sale, and volition interruption adjacent by the extremity of the year. “We privation to scale,” says García. “There’s a question of babe boomer concern owners retiring and selling up.” boopos.com

Onum

Onum is simply a cloud-based level that monitors companies’ information arsenic it moves from postulation to storage. Using AI algorithms, Onum spots anomalies, imaginable information risks, and strategy issues. It besides helps “separate the sound from the signal,” identifying what should beryllium discarded, archived, oregon analyzed, and claims customers chopped the outgo of managing information by up to 80 per cent. Founded successful October 2022 by Pedro Castillo—former CEO of cybersecurity unicorn, Devo— he’s joined by co-founders Lucas Varela and Pedro Tortosa. Onum closed 2 rounds of backing for a full of €38 cardinal ($42 million) led by Kibo Ventures and Dawn Capital. onum.com

Shakers

Shakers is simply a integer workforce level that helps companies build, negociate and wage teams of freelancers. It tin prime an full radical from scratch oregon adhd caller members to an existing endowment pool. Founded by CEO Héctor Mata, COO Nico de Luis, CPO Adrián de Pedro and COO Jaime Castillo successful 2021, Shakers has raised €7 cardinal ($7.7 million) successful rounds led by Brighteye Ventures, Adevinta Ventures and Wayra. The institution claims it has grown 350 percent successful gross successful the past 2 years. Charging businesses for entree to the platform, it has worked with much than 600 Spanish companies including Inditex, Telefónica, Uber and Microsoft and much than 7,000 freelancers. Expansion crossed confederate Europe is planned for 2025. shakersworks.com

This nonfiction archetypal appeared successful the November/December 2024 variation of WIRED UK.