At Sónar, business is also done

Ten startups present their business plans in a pitch before an attentive audience, a mix of entrepreneurs, investors, and curious onlookers. They are in a packed room at the Palau de Congressos of Fira de Barcelona in Montjuïc, leaving some attendees without a chair and forcing them to stand. They have less than five minutes to explain who they are and what their forecasts are. They talk about the millions they want to raise in funding rounds, the partners they are looking for, the stable revenues they have already achieved, and the many countries they want to expand into.

One might think they are at one of the many fairs held in Barcelona, but then, a bit of chumba chumba sneaks into the room. Moreover, the speakers are not overly dressed up; they wear casual clothes, with t-shirts and caps, ready to go dancing later at the concert playing in the background. And that's because they are not congress attendees from events like the Mobile World Congress (MWC) or Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), but rather Sónar attendees.

Many will believe it is just one of the many music festivals held every summer in the city, and few will know that it also features Sónar+D, a program of talks and conferences to learn about new trends in creative technologies, as well as to encourage attendees to exchange ideas and, if applicable, business cards for future agreements. In other words, the formula followed by congresses that grab headlines for days when they arrive in Barcelona. "Sónar+D is the place where people do business and also meet professionals from other sectors that are not necessarily their own," explains its curator, Antònia Folguera, "fairs are very sectoral, and we, within our sectorality, are very transversal; attendees come to broaden their focus."

In the pitch where ten startups present themselves at the Palau de Congressos, three are local. There is Soundsmarket, led by Pau Agustí, a second-hand e-commerce specialized in DJ equipment that has already expanded to France and plans to do so in the coming months to Germany, with the certainty of reaching economic equilibrium this year. Then Aulart takes the floor, directed by Marc Marzenit, an online educational platform that trains musicians, with teachers such as the producer of Coldplay and Jay Z. It already has 13,500 users who pay for their classes and revenues of 1.35 million euros. Finally, SoundStorming speaks, led by Arnau Bosch, formerly global creative director at Apple. The emerging company has developed a platform for artists to find new ways to connect with their fans and already has partners such as Universal Studios, with the forecast of raising up to 1.5 million euros in the coming months.

These are high figures for an industry that is invisible in the city, criticizes José Luis Zagazeta, promoter of the association Barcelona Tech Music and businessman with long experience in the sector in companies such as La Cúpula Musica and Sonosuite. Presentations like Sónar's must serve to publicize companies that mix music and technology, in addition to attracting talent and capital. In fact, one of the companies participating in the pitch, the French Hall Up, has just opened offices in the city.

But Sónar+D is not just about company presentations to find investors and partners. The congress has a space where more than 80 projects are exhibited, more than doubling the figure from the last edition, when there were about thirty. Most are disruptive, like Nephogram, an app to quantify the CO2 emitted every time a photo is uploaded to social media. "Influencers are climate killers," warns Andrés Galeano, the creator of this project, "we have to be aware that the Internet pollutes." Despite emerging as an artistic proposal, Galeano sees its clear business applications, giving the example that, in the same way that Twitter indicates how many people a message reaches, it could also say how much it pollutes. Floatgrids comes to Barcelona from Tortosa with a tool that helps create virtual reality applications, providing designers and developers with all the symbols and typographies they may need for their proposals, standardizing and streamlining a growing process.

At Sónar+D, more than 80 disruptive projects are exhibited, such as Nephogram, an app to quantify the CO2 emitted every time a photo is uploaded to social media

There are also creative proposals like Yolanda Ruiz's, who reclaims a sense she believes forgotten in the digital world, smell, making her piece interact with those who approach it, without needing to touch it, just by detecting their presence. It is located at the stand of Hac Te, an initiative born a few years ago that seeks to explore the intersections between technology, art, and science, explains its executive director, Astrid Rousse, in addition to X-raying the agents that collaborate in these disciplines, with a total of 360 in Catalonia. While potential future partners approach them at Sónar, they are focused on the artistic residencies they will soon promote in three Catalan research centers.

But in the Sónar+D Project Area, there are also consolidated projects. One of them is Neuroelectrics, a company that produces devices to treat the brain and one of the classic speakers at any fair held in Barcelona. It is the first time they participate in the electronic music festival, explains its scientific director, Giulio Ruffini, but for years they have been looking for the possibilities that arise when science is combined with art. At their stand in the Palau de Congressos, they present a proposal to generate art through AI from brain activity, even creating a haiku. "Being here allows us to foster creativity," remarks Ruffini, who points out that art galleries interested in their proposal have approached them.

As the hours pass, the Sónar+D audience is nourished by typical festival-goers, glass in hand, interested in putting on virtual reality glasses or learning about this year's proposals for the Project Area, for which more than 450 proposals were received, says its curator, Antònia Folguera. "We like to say that Sónar is not a festival like the others. The concept of a festival implicitly has a more celebratory value than a congress or a fair. But it can accommodate many ways of celebrating and, above all, of meeting," explains Folguera, recalling that the founders of one of the star exhibitors of previous editions, the immersive solutions company Broomx, met precisely here. "Many matches are made at Sónar. If people didn't meet, many things wouldn't happen," she remarks. This year, more than 5,000 professionals are expected to visit them, awaiting the next success of this congress that is not exactly a congress.