“Barcelona won Miquel Martí, CEO of Tech Barcelona, said: “International talent is attracted to lifestyles, the strength of ecosystems and the presence of international companies.”
According to Barcelona & Catalonia Startup Hub, a regional startup directory, Catalonia has over 1,900 startups, most of which are concentrated in Barcelona. Since 2016, that number has increased by over 75%. The city has a long strong tradition of healthtech start-ups fueled by collaboration between universities and local governments, but successful founders have funded, backed, launched and built other companies. , mobility, and sustainability. Also, post-Brexit cross-border banking, nice weather, a lower cost of living and the attraction of beaches have trickled out fintech companies from London.
Lucas Carnet and Jose Manuel Villanueva at 011h.Photo: Gregory Sibera
011h
Lucas Carné and José Manuel Villanueva sold their e-commerce site Privalia in Barcelona in 2016. In July, he raised €25 million in Series A funding with Redalpine, Aldea Ventures and A/O Proptech. 011h builds prefabricated homes in its own factory using timber from managed forests to remain carbon neutral. “We are implementing factory systems from automotive to construction to reduce costs and design buildings with lower energy requirements,” he explains Carné. “Buildings account for his 40% of his CO2 in the world.2 emissions. A project with developer Renta Corporación reduced the carbon content of the building by more than 90% and shortened the construction schedule by 35% compared to conventional methods. The 011h Fioresta development in Alicante will begin construction in July 2022, with the company developing a digital platform to carry out the design and construction process. Global expansion will continue next year. 011h.com
accessible
“We call it math-based language medicine,” said Carla Zaldua, co-founder and CEO of aceXible. The company’s automated voice analytics capture patients’ voices from anywhere, from doctor’s offices to landlines, and use AI to analyze patients’ voice patterns for early signs of dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and even coronary artery disease. Sentiment analysis with tones, pauses, repeats, so-called audio biomarkers. Founded in 2017, acceXible raised €1.4 million, backed by grants in its early stages, and in seed funding for 2021, he raised $959,000. acceXible detects dementia with over 91% accuracy and will raise a new funding round at the end of 2022. and is expanding internationally. The company is testing the UK National Health Service and services in rural Cornwall, where it’s difficult for older people to reach doctors, and has tested his 60 seconds to detect signs of depression and anxiety in Colombia, Spain. I’m building a prototype for voice testing. England, and America. Accessible.com
Carmen Rios and Frederic Llordachs from Doctomatic.Photo: Gregory Sibera
Self-study
Frederic Llordachs calls himself “Spain’s Grandpa of Digital Health”. He created his doctor search app Doctoralia in 2007, last June he created his Doctomatic with Carmen Rios, Encomenda Smart Capital and he secured his €415,000 seed funding from Ship2B Ventures. did. It’s a remote patient monitoring app that allows doctors to check on chronically ill patients using anything from heart rate monitors to scales. On-screen prompts help subjects take measurements, and physicians are alerted to missing or abnormal results. The data feeds into her Doctomatic predictive AI, which helps doctors identify if a patient’s condition is deteriorating. There are about 5 billion chronically ill people in the world, and Llordachs said Covid is making it harder for those patients to have surgery. European countries are also facing shortages of health workers. “We’re in healthcare, so we don’t want to mess it up. We want to improve,” he explains. doctomatic.com
Botun
VOTTUN is “the WordPress of Web3, selling the shovel of the blockchain gold rush,” says Marta Barrez, who co-founded the platform in 2018 with former Amazon Spanish director and CEO Luis Carbajo. It offers “templates,” ready-to-use blockchain products that enable companies like Nestlé, Estrella Dam and the World Bank to track data, prove identities, manage cryptocurrency payments and initiate NFTs. VOTTUN received government support during the R&D phase in 2020 and 2021, after which he raised €1.1 million in two seed rounds from Draper Venture Network, Lanzame Capital, American fund Proteum X, etc. and raised €2,000. We are planning an initial coin of €10,000. The company will reach breakeven in his 2021 and be profitable in 2022. The next step, Valles predicts, will be expansion into the United States and Mexico. vottun.com
Nuclear
“Nuclia makes the unsearchable searchable,” says CEO Eudald Camprubí. Together with CTO Ramon Navarro Bosch, he built his AI-powered search engine. This search engine indexes data from any document type and transcribes videos in any language. Businesses have and store more unstructured data than they know what to do with. As Kamplebi puts it, “unstructured data in many different data sources.” Nuclia’s Semantic Search indexes everything online in a specially created database, so when a user creates a search query, Nuclia will search for relevant paragraphs and audio and video content, all based on keywords and semantic meaning. Provides specific moments from recordings. Founded in 2019, his Nuclia raised €5 million in a seed round led by Crane.vc and Elaia in April. nuclia.com
Lupa
Combining the second oldest human activity (running) and one of the newest (deep tech), Lupa combines audio coaching, wearables, GPS maps and tourism to guide runners to new routes and local landmarks. and provide running tips and feedback. Menstruation. The app also has a social element. Lupa hosts a weekly running club. sweat and smile Podcasts are meant to build a community atmosphere. The mobile app company was founded by Salomon-sponsored mountain runner and former Google for Startups program his leader Stefano Lorini and co-founder, CTO and running partner Sergi Porta. Founded in his 2020. lupa.run
hoobak
Hubuc’s platform enables any business to embed financial services into their products. For example, services such as issuing payment cards, managing exchange rates, and arranging customer payments. CEO Hasan Nawaz and his COO Ignacio Javierre worked on pivot after pivot before launching his HUBUC in May 2020. Their single API allows you to incorporate financial services (bank accounts, payments, FX rates) into your business offerings. HUBUC sits between financial partners and company products, managing contracts and regulatory requirements. In his February seed round, he raised $10 million from DreamWorks founder Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo and Runa Capital. “Since the beginning of the year, the number of card transactions has increased by 1,600, and card usage has grown exponentially,” explains Javierre. Habook.com
Last.app
Who supported food providers when the world started ordering food on apps? A B2B on-demand courier service for the restaurant industry, founded in 2019 by two brothers. Eric Nikolic, a local entrepreneur and CEO, has realized that “technology is making it harder for restaurants, not less,” he explains. So far, the company has done business with local his chains such as PadThaiWok, Tony Roma’s, Carl’s Jr. and Miss Sushi. His €2.5 million funding round in January was led by Spanish investor All Iron Ventures, backed by Bynd, to bring the currently Spanish-only app’s international expansion to his 2022 date. intended to advance. last.app
Vytans
“Insurance is not an area that has shown much innovation,” said Ana Zamora, a longtime insurance expert who is now the founder and CEO of Vitaance. “We need to not only cover disasters, but contribute to lives.” Working to overcome consumer perceptions that insurance is boring, Vitaance aims to achieve healthy physical, emotional, and financial goals. Gamify the financial, social, mental, and physical improvement of your company’s employees by rewarding individuals and teams that achieve The Catalan company concludes his 2021 with a €3 million pre-seed funding round from SoftBank, Kindred Ventures, Astorya and others to fund research and innovation labs and expand employee benefits. did. vitaance.com
Payflow
Payflow shares Catalonia’s respect for civil society. The startup sells a payroll prepayment service to employers, charging companies a fee if employees withdraw a portion of their salary early, rather than charging employees like competing services. Benoît Menardo, who in 2020 co-founded the company with Avinash Sukhwani, said: The average download rate of users is 40% for him, and in some clients he reaches 90%. It has raised €12 million since its launch in 2020 and in January transitioned to a neobank with an €8 million round involving Spanish VC Seaya Ventures, Cathay Innovation, Y Combinator and Steve Huffman’s Rebel Fund. . payflow.io
