Sifted - Spain’s anti-nomad summer

Good morning there,

Coming up today senior reporter Miriam Partington looks into unrest in Spain over digital nomads and overtourism — and how local governments can fix it. Scroll on for that. Fintech reporter Tom Matsuda also breaks down H1’s most active fintech investors.

Elsewhere:

• Robin AI expanding to Singapore
• UK Space Agency gives out £24m to eight space-focused projects

— Tom Nugent, newsletter editor

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Spain’s anti-nomad summer

A few weeks ago in this newsletter I wrote about whether the digital nomad dream in Lisbon was over. The estimated number of nomad arrivals to the remote working hotspot is way down on its post-Covid peak and some remote workers are being deterred by a feeling they aren’t welcome.

But it’s not the only place in Europe where that’s the case. This summer, protests have occurred from Málaga and Menorca to the Canary Islands over record-high tourist numbers in Spain. In Barcelona, activists in the streets brought out placards and water pistols to shout against an influx of visitors who they think are to blame for pushing up prices, crowding the city and diluting local culture. Some digital nomads have received hate messages online.

Locals are fed up. And, from conversations I’m having, a lack of affordable housing, skyrocketing prices and strained local services only seem to be getting worse. 

“People are tired. I think we saw such a rise in prices of everything from basic foods to accommodation — so everything that people actually need to live, not the luxuries, but literally going to the market, getting food, trying to get an apartment in a city — that it all just became very, very difficult,” says Gonçalo Hall, founder of the Digital Nomads Madeira project and CEO of NomadX, which builds nomad communities globally.

Tourists and digital nomads aren’t entirely to blame for this, thinks Nacho Rodriguez, who grew up in Gran Canaria and has been running a consultancy for remote workers offering accommodation, workspaces and company retreats for the last decade. In the case of the Canary Islands, he thinks a lot of the problems come from a lot of wealth being generated by tourism — nearly €20bn in 2023, according to the local government — but not enough of that value is finding its way to the locals. 

That said, other remote work experts tell me the backlash this summer is an opportunity for local governments to root out the worst elements of tourism and digital nomadism and introduce policies that help bring long-term value to regions that need it. 

Nomads can bring some benefits. They tend to stay in a place longer than the average tourist — often for up to several months at a time — meaning there’s more opportunity for them to spend more money on local businesses, integrate better into the community and even start their own companies to provide jobs for local people. Only if those things happen though can it work properly. 

They’re the issues I dig into in my feature today. You can read the full piece here — and as ever, if you have a perspective to add to the discussion, get in touch.

— Miriam Partington, senior reporter

💪 UK-based Robin AI, which uses GenAI trained on legal documents to help companies draft and edit contracts, announced it is expanding to Singapore after picking up funding from the country’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek earlier this year. 

• The news comes hot on the heels of several legaltech raises, as startups compete to deploy AI in the sector. Just this month, Sweden’s Leya raised $25m and Belgium’s LegalFly picked up €15m.
• Also this year: Luminance raised $40m, Definely raised $7m and Wordsmith AI raised $5m. The three companies are UK-based.  

🔭 Eight space-focused projects have been given a slice of £24m in funding from the UK Space Agency’s National Space Innovation Programme. 

• Among them are HyImpulse, a Glasgow, Scotland and Neuenstadt, Germany-based startup building small launch vehicles, and SuperSharp, a University of Cambridge spinout developing thermal infrared space telescopes for earth observation. 
• Funding also went to Lúnasa, a UK-based spacetech testing technology to help satellites dock with one another.

🔥 Meet European fintech’s most active investors.

🤔 Has Silicon Valley gone Maga? (Financial Times)

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Vilnius-based Finbee, an alternative lending platform, raised €35m in funding from Pollen Street Capital.

Krakow, Poland-based Digital First AI, which is developing AI tools to automate marketing, raised $3.8m in funding. 4growth VC led the round and was joined by investors including Plug and Play Tech Center, Sher Ventures, Hub71 and McCann Poland.

Berlin-based TRAIT, which uses AI to personalise fitness training, raised €1m in seed funding from investors including High-Tech Gründerfonds and better ventures.

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