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Countless VC records were smashed in Europe across 2021, and things were no different on the Iberian Peninsula. Funding into Spanish startups quadrupled, megarounds were raised and unicorns minted. Sifted's Tim Smith runs through his highlights of last year and some predictions for this one, plus...

• The December seed deals you should pay attention to
• Why customer support is so crucial for startups this year
• The UK startup helping the EU run its blockchain

2021 was a bumper year in Spain.

According to Dealroom, Spanish startups raised $4.9bn across 2021 (four times as much as the previous year), the country minted two new unicorns and saw megarounds for scaleups Jobandtalent and Glovo. But the impressive figures only tell part of the story.

Here are the key moments on the Spanish startup scene from 2021.

With more than 17 million customers in the UK, buy now, pay later (BNPL) has disrupted the credit card industry. But can it expand beyond the younger market? 

Tune in to this Sifted Talks on January 12 to find out.

2021 was a record-breaking year for Europe's seed and pre-seed companies. They brought in a total of €3.1bn — up from €2.8bn in 2020 — and that figure will only go up in the coming months owing to the reporting lag.

While December's count of 218 deals is slightly lower than preceding months, the festive period still played host to a number of significant seed rounds.

Here are the ones that caught our eye.

The tech founder college dropout is well known trope in startup culture. But, outside of Hollywood films, how much difference does a degree make to an entrepreneur?

Potentially, quite a lot. According to a Fortune 100 CEO study, 54% had a degree, of which 59% were MBAs. 

Sifted spoke to programme leaders at WHU to find out what the real benefits of a degree are to a founder.

Here's what they had to say.

If you're going to be a successful startup in the next decade, your customer service is going to have to be one of your main priorities, says Daria Leshchenko, CEO of SupportYourApp.

After a generation of tech companies have hit the big time with no tangible customer service channels aside from automated bots, she adds, the era of unaccountable growth is over.

Here's why startups need to slow down and (re)focus on their customers.

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London-based iov42 has just secured one of seven EU contracts — collectively worth €6.2m — to help the bloc fix its sprawling administration.

Iov42 batted off competition from behemoths like Vodafone, EY and Deloitte to secure the gig, and the hope is that the blockchain should add accountability to the vast EU budget via its public ledger. 

Here's how the startup plans to change the way the EU manages its admin.

🛒 Delivery Hero becomes Glovo's major shareholder. The German delivery giant has bought an additional 39.4% stake in the Spanish on-demand delivery scaleup — on top of the 44% it already held. It follows a frenzied year for speedy delivery startups and marks another significant move by a major player to consolidate its market share.

🚀 Spacetech is booming. Spanish satellite startup PLD Space has just secured $28m in its Series B, and will look to triple its headcount in the next three years. The raise comes on the back of a bumper year for the sector in Europe, and there are now more than 450 spacetechs in the region.

🛠️ The future of construction tech. Construction is a huge industry in Europe — it accounts for 9% of the EU's GDP and employs more than 18m people. It's also, historically, been pretty anti-tech — but that could be about to change. With a growing toolkit of gadgets and a need to innovate post-pandemic, the industry could (finally) be on the cusp of the 21st century. Here's why.

🤔 5 things to do before working with a corporate. Startups and corporates don't always have a lot in common. The former work at breakneck speed and have limited time between funding rounds, while the latter are slow, steady and methodic. But that doesn't mean the two can't work together in harmony. Here's what startups can do to make sure they're not wasting their time.

📊 Data is having a moment. Monzo's head of data science has analysed the number of people in the data and engineering teams at Europe's top tech companies. While the ratio ranges from around 1:10 to 1:2 in favour of engineering, the former is making serious gains. Find out how Monzo, Starling, Deliveroo, Getir and many more compare.

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