The European country is among the most popular in the world

Spain is one of the most visited countries in the world. From bustling city life in Madrid and Barcelona to stunning beaches along the Mediterranean coast, Spain offers something for every type of traveller.

The country is easily accessible from many parts of the world, and its tourism sector offers a range of options to suit different budgets. In 2024, Spain was the second most visited country in the world, recording around 94 million international tourists from around the globe.

In Spain, tourists and residents must be aware of and adhere to various laws and regulations, including those related to traffic, noise, public spaces, and more. Failure to comply can result in fines, legal trouble, or other penalties.

While English is spoken in tourist areas, learning some basic Spanish phrases can be helpful for your trip. The Foreign Office has shared information for British people heading to the popular European holiday destination.

The rules surrounding personal ID are important in Spain. The Foreign Office says: “You must provide photo ID if asked by a police officer.

“This includes the Guardia Civil and national, regional and local police forces. The police have the right to hold you at a police station until they have confirmed your identity.

“Ignoring direct requests of a police officer can be considered as ‘disobedience’, which is a criminal offence.”

You may also need to show ID when when buying goods with credit or debit cards. Some shops will accept your driving licence or a copy of your passport, but some may ask for your passport.

Hotels, tourist accommodation and car rental companies have a legal duty to register passports and other details of tourists who check in or collect a vehicle.

Under Article 4 of Organic Law 4/2000, everyone in Spain, including citizens, EU nationals, and foreign visitors must carry valid ID at all times. If you’re stopped by police and can’t produce ID immediately, you risk detention and fines.

If you choose to travel, research your destinations and get appropriate travel insurance. Insurance should cover your itinerary, planned activities and expenses in an emergency.

Spain follows Schengen area rules. This means your passport must have a ‘date of issue’ less than 10 years before the date you arrive – if you renewed your passport before October 2018, it may have a date of issue that is more than 10 years ago.

It must also have an ‘expiry date’ at least three months after the day you plan to leave the Schengen area (the expiry date does not need to be within 10 years of the date of issue).

You will be denied entry if you do not have a valid travel document or try to use a passport that has been reported lost or stolen.

Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board.

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding rounds here.

Sizable startup funding announcements continued to roll in this week, with the largest rounds coming in the form of growth equity investments to Quavo Fraud & Dispute Solutions and Vanta, two companies in the dispute and risk management spaces. We also saw good-sized financings tied to AI and biotech.

1. Quavo, $300M, dispute management: Dispute management software provider Quavo announced that it secured $300 million in a growth equity investment from Spectrum Equity.  The 10-year-old Wilmington, Delaware-based company offers tools for banks, credit unions and fintechs to manage consumer transaction disputes.

2. Vanta, $150M, compliance and risk management: Vanta, developer of AI-enabled tools for enterprise compliance and risk management, raised $150 million in Series D funding. Wellington Management led the financing, which sets a $4.15 billion valuation for the San Francisco-based company.

3. Armada, $131M, edge computing: San Francisco-based Armada, developer of an edge computing platform for communications-challenged areas, locked down $131 million in fresh funding. It plans to use the funds to scale Leviathan, its megawatt-scale, full-stack modular data center.

4. HeroDevs, $125M, enterprise software: Salt Lake City-based HeroDevs, a provider of security and compliance tools for deprecated open source software, picked up $125 million in a growth financing round led by PSG Equity.

5. Reka, $110M, artificial intelligence: Reka, a provider of multimodal AI research and product development tools, said it landed $110 million in a round backed by Nvidia and Snowflake. The financing brings total known funding for the 3-year-old, Sunnyvale, California-based company to $170 million, per Crunchbase data.

6. (tied) Avalyn Pharma, $100M, respiratory therapies: Avalyn Pharma, a biotech developing inhaled therapies to treat rare respiratory diseases, closed on $100 million in Series D funding. Suvretta Capital Management and SR One led the financing for the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company.

6. (tied) Nudge, $100M, neuroscience: Nudge, a developer of ultrasound technology to stimulate and image the brain, raised $100 million in a Series A round led by Thrive Capital and Greenoaks.

8. Slingshot AI, $93M, mental health and AI: Slingshot AI, an Albany, New York-based developer of foundational AI models for psychology and mental health, announced that it raised an extension to its previously disclosed Series A funding. Radical Ventures and Forerunner led the extension round, which brings total investment for the Series A to $93 million. Andreessen Horowitz led the first Series A financing in January.

9. Yieldstreet, $77M, investment platform: Yieldstreet, a platform for investing in private market assets like real estate and private equity, secured $77 million in a financing led by Tarsadia Investments. To date, the New York company has raised over $400 million in equity funding and $500 million in debt financing, per Crunchbase data.

10. Gupshup, $60M+, conversational AI: Gupshup, a provider of conversational AI tools for businesses, closed on more than $60 million in a combined equity and debt financing backed by Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital. Headquartered in San Francisco, Gupshup also has significant operations in India.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of July 19-25. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

This is a monthly column that runs down five interesting startup funding deals every month that may have flown under the radar. Check out our June entry here.

A host of funded startups caught our attention this month, ranging from a flu vaccine developer to a startup identifying AI deepfakes to another mapping underground utilities. Let’s take a closer look.

Startup eyes $96M Series B to help see underground

Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

In fact, when it comes to things like underground utility lines or pipes, knowing they exist before you start excavating can be worth many millions of dollars.

That’s the premise for Exodigo, a startup that earlier this month announced an oversubscribed $96 million Series B round.

The company’s technology uses artificial intelligence, 3D imaging and advanced sensors to map and visualize underground infrastructure so that new construction and infrastructure projects can be designed and built with fuller knowledge of what’s buried there — mitigating risks and unnecessary excavation, delays and budget overruns, the company says.

Exodigo says it counts more than 50 transit agencies, municipalities and utility companies around the world as its customers, including Amtrak, California High-Speed Rail Authority, Florida DOT, Metro Los Angeles and Sound Transit.

Its Series B was co-led by early investors Zeev Ventures and Greenfield Partners. Existing investors 10D VC, Square Peg Capital and Jibe Ventures also participated, along with new investors Vintage Investment Partners and Leblon Capital.

“Exodigo is redefining AI for geophysics in an effort to solve the underground and unlock a $500B market. Providing access to precise underground visibility has the potential to drive tens of billions of dollars in efficiency savings across a variety of industries and global growth centers,” Greenfield partner Raz Mangel said in a statement.

The company, based in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, has now raised $212 million since its founding in 2021, per Crunchbase.

Universal flu vaccine developer gets $45M shot in the arm

What if the flu shot was a one-and-done deal like so many other immunizations for infectious diseases?

Earlier this month, South San Francisco, California-based biotech startup Centivax raised $45 million in a Series A round to further development and commercialization of its mRNA candidate for what would be the world’s first universal flu vaccine, an idea that’s captivated scientists for decades.

Such a vaccine would be a game changer in the global fight against the flu and pandemics. The flu kills as many as 500,000 people globally a year but is difficult to immunize against as it produces new variants each season, with annual vaccine formulations varying greatly in their effectiveness.

Centivax’s new funding came from Steve Jurvetson’s Future Ventures, with participation from NFX, Bold Capital Partners, Base4 Capital, Kendall Capital Partners, AmplifyBio and existing investors.

But as Axios’ Dan Primack noted recently, the funding comes at a precarious time, with high degrees of public skepticism — largely unfounded — about vaccines, particularly mRNA shots. The company may also run into resistance as it works to secure FDA approval from drug regulators.

While the Trump administration has said it wants to develop a universal flu vaccine, it seems to favor older vaccine technology over mRNA and other newer approaches — a decision that has reportedly baffled many in the scientific and medical communities.

Still, Centivax founder and CEO Jake Glanville told Primack that he’s optimistic about working with the administration: “This FDA already has fast-tracked a couple of mRNA vaccines,” he said, adding that “they just put $500 million toward a universal flu shot effort — not ours, but they think mRNA needs more study and we’re here to do more study.”

While the company is for now focused on developing a flu vaccine, it has said its technology could eventually be used to develop universal immunizations for coronaviruses, malaria, HIV and herpes, and even a universal antivenom.

Centivax has raised more than $59 million in funding to date, per Crunchbase. Along with the new round, the startup also announced the addition of former Gates Medical Research Institute CEO and former Merck and Pfizer executive Dr. Emilio Emini to its board of directors.

Good AI vs. bad AI

AI-related startups are raising tens of billions of dollars from venture investors, with generative AI giants such as OpenAI, xAI and Anthropic attracting by far the most capital. In Q2, nearly half of the $91 billion raised by startups globally went to AI-related companies, per Crunchbase data.

The proliferation of AI in every sphere of life also means there is a growing market for companies that aim to tackle the technology’s ills. In that vein, Milan-based IdentifAI has raised a €5 million (approximately $5.9 million) funding round led by United Ventures for its AI deepfake detection technology.

The company, founded just last year, says its platform can detect “with a high degree of confidence and accuracy” whether a piece of content — an image, voice recording or video — was created or manipulated by generative AI.

“IdentifAI is building technology to address one of the most pressing challenges created by the rapid advancement of AI itself: distinguishing what’s real from what’s not. This is a foundational issue for the future of AI,” Massimiliano Magrini, managing partner and co-founder of United Ventures, said in a funding announcement. “The team has demonstrated exceptional vision, execution, and international ambition — positioning IdentifAI as one of Europe’s most promising players in the fight against disinformation.”

IdentifAI’s latest raise comes less than a year after its €2.2 million seed round, also led by United Ventures.

Financial planner for retirees puts another $10M in the bank

A growing number of older Americans face financial insecurity in what should be their golden years. An AARP survey last year found that 20% of Americans aged 50 and older have no retirement savings at all, and more than 60% of that group worry they won’t be able to financially sustain themselves in retirement.

Other studies suggest the issue is only set to worsen. More than 4 million Americans are expected to retire each year through 2027, according to McKinsey research cited by Retirable, a startup offering a financial platform for retirees that this month announced new funding.

New York-based Retirable said earlier in July that it has raised a $10 million Series A round led by IA Capital Group. New investors including Nationwide Ventures, Western & Southern Financial Group and Clocktower Technology Ventures also joined, as did existing investors Primary Venture Partners, Portage Ventures, Vestigo Ventures and SilverCircle.

The company said its suite of wealth management and financial planning services is aimed at everyday older Americans. About 70% of its customers have reportedly never worked with a retirement planner before.

Retirable’s service pairs each client with a fiduciary adviser who offers guidance on tax strategy, Social Security timing, housing options, Medicare enrollment and healthcare planning. It also offers a debit card, custom investment portfolios, high-yield cash management accounts, and what it describes as a “proprietary bond ladder strategy” that secures seven years of predictable income by staggering bond maturities.

“We started Retirable because there’s an enormous gap in the market and we saw too many Americans retiring without a plan,” CEO and co-founder Tyler End said in a statement. “Most wealth management firms focus on the affluent, with account minimums starting at $500,000 or more. But the average near-retiree has far less in savings, and nowhere to turn for professional advice. We exist to serve this forgotten middle of Americans who deserve the same peace of mind and confidence in their retirement.”

The company said it has doubled its assets under management in the past six months, to $175 million.

Along with the new funding announcement, Retirable disclosed a previously unannounced $4.7 million seed round by Portage that it says brings its total funding to date to $25 million.

AI legal matchmaker raises $3.5M

For many people, finding good legal help can be surprisingly difficult — often coming down to settling for the attorney with the best marketing team or biggest SEO budget.

With that challenge in mind, San Francisco-based legal tech OpenLaw said it raised $3.5 million in an oversubscribed seed round for its platform that uses AI to match people seeking access to legal services with vetted solo and small-firm attorneys.

The company, which launched just last year, says it aims to make legal assistance more accessible for the millions of people who struggle to find qualified and affordable attorneys suited to work on their particular legal issue. While legal marketplaces such as UpCounsel and ContractsCounsel exist, they focus on business or transactional law.

OpenLaw says its service is free for clients and the intake process takes only a few hours, versus the weeks it might take to search for and vet an attorney otherwise.

Clients submit a brief description of their case, and OpenLaw’s AI tech then matches them with attorneys — solo practitioners or small-firm lawyers, who are typically much more affordable than their Big Law counterparts — who respond with tailored proposals and pricing. For the attorneys, the platform functions as a lead-generation tool, one which OpenLaw says significantly cuts intake time and client-acquisition costs.

OpenLaw said that since launching last year, it has helped make more than 1,000 connections between clients and attorneys and onboarded more than 130 lawyers.

“The legal system wasn’t designed for the majority of Americans — and it hasn’t evolved,” CEO and founder Andrew Guzman said in a statement. “Growing up, my family couldn’t afford legal help. Later, as a lawyer who built a solo practice into a multi-state law firm, I saw firsthand how inefficient the system is for both sides. OpenLaw fixes what’s broken — for the people who need help and the lawyers who want to provide it.”
OpenLaw’s funding round was co-led by Flint Capital and Slauson & Co. The LegalTech Fund, Mindful VC, Everywhere VC, Wisdom Ventures, SQII Ventures and Gaingels also participated.

Illustration: Dom Guzman