The 5 national startups that managed to integrate into the GAFA empire

Panoramio and Virustotal: Google

Google is said to have paid a total of 6 million euros in 2007 to buy the startup Panoramio in order to integrate it into its Google Maps service. Panoramio was born in 2005 by two young people from Alicante, Edward Manchon Y Joaquin Cuenca as a website where internet users could upload the best photos of their travels. Panoramio’s goal was to allow users of this app to learn more about a specific area of ​​the world map by looking at photos taken by other users. In September 2014, Google announced the permanent closure of Panoramio.

After the closure of the company, the two founders continued their entrepreneurial path separately. Manchón is currently the CEO of mail track while Cuenca subsequently founded PressPeople and the image bank Freepik , the most used in the world. With the latter he starred in a new exit last year after being acquired by Swedish fund EQT. Operations were discontinued for around 250 million euros.

Talk about virus total is a company that operates in Malaga and offers free antivirus analysis of files and websites. Developed by Spanish security company Hispasec Sistemas, it includes 55 antivirus and 61 online detection engines. The company was acquired by Google in 2012 without the amount being disclosed.

The company later became part of the Alphabet conglomerate Bernard QuinteroFounder of HispaSec Sistemas and VirusTotal, has managed to become so strong in the field of cybersecurity that he managed to get Google to open its center of excellence in cybersecurity in Malaga, which is scheduled to open in 2023.

Vilynx: Apple

Of all the above, this is the most recent operation. It was late 2020 when Apple announced the purchase of startup Vilynx, which specializes in analyzing video content using artificial intelligence. The amount under discussion is around 50 million dollars, about 42.5 million euros.

Vilynx is a Barcelona-based startup founded in 2011 that provides content and video tagging and indexing services on the web so users can find them through searches. His project was known as the “Google of Videos”.

The company was founded in Barcelona in 2013 by Elisenda Bou and Juan Carlos Riviero (that last serial entrepreneur). In this case, it is the first time that the company Apple is interested in acquiring a national startup.

PlayGiga: Facebook

PlayGiga, a Spanish cloud video game startup, was acquired by Facebook in late 2019 for nearly €70 million, it was reported at the time. Javier Polo, then CEO of the company and now CEO of rat box, managed to complete the first operation – and for the time being the only one – performed by Mark Zuckerberg’s company in Spain. PlayGiga was born at the end of 2013 with the aim of becoming the Spanish Netflix of video games.

BuyVip: Amazon

Founded by Gustavo García Brusilovsky Y Jose Luis Vallejo BuyVip was acquired by multinational Amazon in 2010. It had a turnover of 140 million euros at the time, 7 million active users, a presence in 7 different countries and was reportedly sold for 70 million euros. A level of profitability that Amazon was unable to reverse, which led to the closure of the private online sales platform Amazon BuyVIP in 2017.

For their part, the founders continued the entrepreneurial path and managed other projects, José Luis Vallejo leading the way Singularwhile Brusilovsky founded Klikin, which was acquired by Repsol, and Fashionalia. At the forefront of their respective businesses, both continue to reap entrepreneurial success.

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