How do you see the current investment sentiment in Spain?

The investment amounts that are in the process of being raised have dropped in Spain as well, however, there are far more bridge rounds at the same time. This is due to the increased difficulty of closing complete rounds – many investors are still, if not on hold, taking longer time to make their decisions.

How has it changed from your perspective?

As already mentioned, there are smaller rounds, and it in general takes longer to close them. The hole that tends to exist between pre-seed/seed and series A has become bigger.

The focus topic of this year’s startup award series is smart mobility, which might be considered unfortunate during these times with the automotive industry facing big challenges itself. What’s your take on this?

Private vs public transport has moved in private transport’s favour, which is probably bad for society, but good for the automotive industry in the medium term. The pandemic might have set back the move to electric mobility slightly too; however, the EU’s New Green Deal will undoubtedly advance all types of sustainable mobility, and so more than counter that delay.

Generally, I would say that the pandemic will end up accelerating a number of changes in the mobility sector, from MaaS to sustainability, even through to infrastructure investments that support smart cities. I hope that many of the same sensors and platforms that are being put in place to support the tracking and tracing of Covid-19 sufferers can also be used to support mobility solutions in the longer term.

How do you think smart mobility has changed in Spain over the years?

We set up the Connected Mobility Hub almost 6 years ago now, initially with a view to being a vehicle to invest in smart mobility startups, although we ended up as a non-profit association supporting the industry in Europe! The reason for the pivot is that at that time we couldn’t even find any smart mobility startups to invest in, whereas nowadays we have over 150 smart mobility startups actually as members of the association, and a community of over 500 from across Europe. Most of that growth has happened in the last two years. It took us 4 years to reach 50 associated members and 2 years to reach over 150. That growth is a sign of the growth of the industry generally. In Spain specifically, there are particularly strong startups in logistics, electric mobility and MaaS, compared to other geographies, which makes sense given the size and demographics of the country as well as the abundance of renewable energy experience.