Madrid plans self-driving taxi pilot, data centre rules unsettle investors, idealista enters France

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Spain's government has set new requirements for data centre projects, and the companies that promised to spend billions there have opinions. Amazon, with €33.7B pledged to Aragón through 2035, warns that applying the rules retroactively could endanger projects that already have permits. Three foreign investors say €9B of projects could move abroad, and Quetta Data Centers says it cannot realistically build the matching renewables in 18 months. After hundreds of objections, the government has hinted it may soften the rules, though it still wants to keep pressure off electricity bills. Spain's proposed €5B AI gigafactory waits to see how that goes.

Elsewhere, Madrid says it will be the first European region to pilot self-driving cars and taxis, starting in Q4 2026, and idealista has opened in France, its fourth market. HVR Energy, a Madrid hydrogen refuelling operator, took a €20M Series A valued at €120M post-money, with Sandton supplying €15M of it. Portugal's Biovance Capital led an €11M Series A for Seville biotech Vaxdyn, and HeyDiga, whose AI agents answer calls for service businesses, raised €5.5M led by 6 Degrees Capital.

Filings show that Asana's purchase of StackAI came with 7.5M shares for its roughly 80 employees and as much as $20M more in stock tied to performance after a year, a package that could be worth $73M–$82M. Multiverse Computing lost nearly €24M in 2025 on sales of €11.1M.