As a country, we gotta be the first at doing something. How about sanctioning BlaBlaCar and some of its drivers for ilegally (according to Spanish laws) driving people around? Done.
Just as the company is awaiting a judicial ruling that could force BlaBlaCar to shut down in the country, news leaked that several drivers have received combined fines of up to €16,800 for driving users of the platform without a proper public transportation license while charging them more than €0.19 per km.
As it’s happened with many other technology companies disrupting existing, and regulated, markets, the key to the trial seems to lie in the definition of BlaBlaCar. The company itself claims that it’s just a social network that puts together drivers and users, while Confebus and other traditional bus transportation companies say that, as a proper transportation company, it needs to be regulated in the same way that they are.
The result of the trial will probably come out in a few weeks.
Other news today:
- We officially announced K Fund in the press. We were lucky to receive so much coverage, including TechCrunch, Tech.eu, El Confidencial, El Español or Cinco Días.
- I don’t much to add about the whole Ingenius debacle, but El Confidencial has a good summary.
- Adara VP, a Madrid-based VC firm that tends to invest in pure software businesses, announced late last week a €1.5 million investment in Seedtag. This is Adara’s third investment over the last few months, also featuring 4IQ (Julio Casal’s new startup) and Countercraft.
- If you have a company that is in any way related to drone technology, you should check out this program in Galicia that has more than €110 million in funding commitments.
- Martin Varsavsky fertility startup, Prelude, has raised €200 million in funding, according to El País.