Updated on Feb 16, 2024
1. Habitacion.com , the startup to buy rooms in shared flats, raises €400,000 in pre-seed 🚪🔑.
The startup Habitacion.com has closed a pre-seed funding round of €400,000. Its value proposition is simple but, until now, not well known: it is based on the growing demand for rental rooms in shared flats for singles 👩🏻 or couples 👩❤️👨, habitacion.com goes a step further and offers this type of rooms for purchase.
This seemingly strange approach of the proptech, when analyzed, connects directly with the generational problem 😓 of Millennials and Gen Z: they can't access a home because they need to save to pay the down payment. But instead of saving, they must face the cost of rent (often for rooms due to rising rental prices) and get into a cycle of high rent payments-inability to save 🤦🏻♀️🏦.
How do they seek to resolve this?: by offering rooms for ownership, with a mortgage price similar to what would be paid for rent, which can be resold when the time comes and capitalized to pay for the down payment of another owned property 🏡. In this resale, the startup helps the owner to find a buyer or ensures a re-purchase to guarantee liquidity 💸.
The fine print is covered: their clients become true owners, registered in the Property Registry 🔏 and under a agreement that protects their interests of cohabitation and against possible defaults of co-owners 🙅🏻♀️.
The goal of the round is operations 🗂️ and the validation of their business model, along with expansion 🚀 to cities like Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Granada and Alicante.
From roomie 👱🏼♀️ to ownie 👩🏼💼, we will see if it transforms the reality of a whole generation.
👉🏻Discover more about this round here and how it's turning the real estate market upside down 🦵🏼🏘️
👉🏻 If you need help starting or consolidating a digital-based business 🚀 we can help you understand your audience, define your business model and develop it with the best UX and technology. [Schedule a meeting with our experts here] 📅 and one of our advisors 📲 will contact you to discuss your project.
2. OpenAI launches Sora, its text to video AI model ⌨️ > 🎥
OpenAI doesn't give us a break (fortunately 😊) and has just launched Sora to the world, its flagship video generation model. As they announce, Sora is capable of creating realistic and imaginative scenes from textual instructions. This text to video model allows users to create photorealistic videos of up to a minute ⏱️ in length based on the texts they write.
At first, it is capable of:
Generating complex scenes with multiple characters 👩👩👧👧, specific types of movement and precise details of the subject and the background,* according to the OpenAI blog.
It can understand how objects exist in the physical world 🦅*.*
It is capable of precisely interpreting accessories and generating convincing characters that express vibrant emotions 😰.
The starting point can also be a still image 🌉, from which a video is generated, as well as completing missing frames in an existing video or extending it 🚂.
The demos generated by Sora included in the OpenAI blog post feature an aerial scene of California during the gold rush ⚒️ and a video that seems to have been recorded from inside a train in Tokyo 💺, among others.
As some videos hint at having been generated by AI 🤖👍🏼, OpenAI admits that the model may struggle to accurately simulate the physics of a complex scene, but the results are overall quite impressive 😮. Aside from some weightlessness, everything else is fine 🫨.
For now, Sora is only available to "red teamers" 🧑🏼💻 who are evaluating the model for potential risks and damages and to some visual 🧑🎨 artists, designers, and filmmakers for feedback.
👉🏻 Here to read the Sora news by OpenAI on The Verge.
👉🏻 Here to watch the generated videos with some examples from the AI company (here for another short version video).
3. The Fintechs that could go public in 2024 and that we can't take our eyes off 🔔👁️.
The Fintech sector is on fire 🔥 and it seems that several companies are preparing to make the big leap to the stock market in 2024. Among the names that are strongly rumored are:
Stripe, the queen 👸🏻 of online payments, which after hiring a new CFO, could be warming up for its IPO 🏁.
Chime, with its financial app that is already a must-have and became famous, beloved and handy for advancing 📩 the paycheck in the USA market 🇺🇸.
Klarna flagbearer of buy-now-pay-later online 🛍️, on its part, plays at being mysterious but has already confirmed to TechCrunch movements towards a possible IPO.
Lendbuzz is preparing for a movie 🎬 valuation, thanks to its product: it offers loans to acquire a vehicle 🚗 to people without a credit history in the USA.
👉🏻 Here to read the complete news and meet the other 6 companies in the Fintech world 🤑 that will surprise us this year by ringing the bell for their IPO (or not 🤷🏻♀️).
4. Liseners, the platform to find someone to listen to us 👂🏻🥹.
It was born in Barcelona and it's called Liseners: it is a startup that promises to be the balm for those gray days ⛈️, offering active listening through personalized online sessions🗣️💬.
Its promise is to offer you this active listening with an interlocutor as close ❤️ to each situation as possible, someone who truly understands what you are going through, thanks to their own experiences 🤝.
Users can access 45-minute sessions with empathetic listeners, trained to offer you emotional support 🥲, without judgment and with complete confidentiality 🤐.
At an affordable price, it aims to be an alternative to traditional therapy, democratizing 🔓 access to emotional well-being at a time when anxiety and frustration levels in the younger generations are experiencing unprecedented increases.
👉🏻 Here to read the news about Liseners 🤗.
👉🏻 Here to learn about the platform, find a Lisener or even apply to be one of the listeners 🎧 (they pay a little over €12 per listening session).
5. Villa, Court and Hub: Madrid breaks records in investment and startup success in 2023 🚰🧑🏼💻.
It is said, known and felt that Madrid is on fire, but that it has broken records in 2023 is only clearly stated by the figures.
Resistance in tough times 💪🏼: with 249 closed investments in funding rounds in 2023, reflecting the maturity of the local ecosystem even with the global slowdown in venture capital investment.
Amount 💰: Madrid startups raised €1.2 billion, 9% more than in 2022, placing Madrid as the sixth best ecosystem in Europe.
Diversification 📊: half of the investment went to sectors such as mobility, B2B software, fintech, events, health, foodtech, and marketing, with AI startups capturing over €200 million and other deeptech areas €130 million.
DeepTech 🧑🏼💻: of the 1,205 deeptech companies in Spain (8% of the total in Europe) 347 are based in Madrid.
