Better Know A Barcelona Startup: Marfeel (@marfeel)

Most content based websites don’t have a responsive website let alone a smartphone or iPad app. So when it comes to viewing your favourite content on mobile devices such as smartphones or iPad’s the viewing experience is usually shit – a duplicate (and awkward) version of what you see on your desktop browser. Readers not being able to digest the content they want and advertisers not being able to present their material causes considerable limitations for both sides.

Seeing the massive opportunity before him as the world transitions to mobile browsing, Xavi Beumala founded Marfeel in October of 2011 allowing you to turn any content based website into a remarkable Flipboard-like experience on tablets or smartphones. The experience encourages natural, continuous and fluid reading with a focus on, surprisingly enough, discovering new content. The technology provides you with an optimal ‘look and feel’ browsing experience, which solves the problem for both content consumers and advertisers. Let’s not forget that the idea isn’t just for things to look pretty, so when Juan Margenat joined the team last fall they needed to figure out “How to help publishers make more money.”

With over 4 million readers and 100 million page views, Marfeel has been able to sign major partnerships with media outlets such as Expansion, CincoDias, Vozpopuli, Sport, Publico.es, El Periodico, 20 Minutos, Gala (in France) and these are early days. With their disruptive technology, they have quickly established themselves as a leading provider of solutions for mobile content consumption for publishers. Xavi aims to “bring the publishers form zero to hero” and allows them to ‘try before they buy’, providing them a customized demo in under 24 hours. Versatile or what?

Across the Atlantic, Marfeel has OnSwipe (NYC) and Pressly (Canada) as adversaries although “the real competitor is the publisher itself” as Xavi illustrates. The first reaction from the publishers is “nice idea, but we’ll do it ourselves.” After speaking with the tech team at Marfeel, the publishers realize that they aren’t a nimble team of prodigies with years of front-end experience under their belt, and doing it on their own isn’t a feasible option. Marfeel 1, Publishers 0. The Marfeel team updates the product for their clients at least twice a week to weed out any bugs, maximizing customer satisfaction.

Marfeel recently raised  1.6 million Euros in a Series A funding led by Spain’s leading VC Nauta Capital, alongside Elaia Partners, BDMI, and existing investor Wayra. They currently have a team of 13 badass industry veterans with a shared vision of ‘responsibility’ within the workplace. Xavi notes that “in the last 5 weeks we have doubled the size of the company” showing rapid expansion within their business development teams. According to Xavi, “being based in Barcelona has really helped attract a lot of high-level international talent, especially since we want native speakers for each market.”

A little bit about the man in question: Xavi has a strong tech background and started developing at the ripe young age of 7. He initially worked as a Telecomm Engineer in Spain followed by a 5-year stint as a Technical Architect at Adobe which took him all the way to London, Dublin, SF, Seattle and NY. Having spent time in the states where things get done whatever the magnitude, he hopes to instill some of that “everything is possible” attitude here in the Spanish HQ. “In San Francisco, you will never have a discussion that something is not possible, the discussion is always focused around making it happen”. Stop saying hmmm, yeahhhh and I’m not sure, people and just make it happen!

For more information on Marfeel and to check out their radical new technology, click here.