Aticco Workspaces will manage the Barcelona Stock Exchange's financial 'hub'

The future financial hub that the Govern is promoting in the Barcelona Stock Exchange building already has an operator. The Department of Economy has awarded Cospace the project to convert five of the floors of the emblematic building on Paseo de Gràcia into a driving center for companies linked to financial services. Behind Cospace are entrepreneurs Gabriel Espin, Juan Carlos Morales, and Franz Pallarès, who in 2016 launched the flexible workspace company Aticco Workspaces.

The Generalitat opened the public tender last September to find "an operator to carry out the promotion, revitalization, and competitiveness of financial services around technology, sustainable finance, and investment entrepreneurship in Catalonia." According to the resolution published this Wednesday, Cospace is the winning company of the competitive process and for six years, between 2024 and 2029, it will be able to use floors 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of the Stock Exchange building. In exchange for this transfer of use ---which the Generalitat channels through an in-kind subsidy--- the operator will have to pay the Catalan administration an annual fee of 224,240 euros and carry out all the actions detailed in the tender bases. The annual market value of this office space on Paseo de Gràcia is 648,000 euros. The public tender received a second offer from the company Cloud Workspaces. For its part, the Tech Barcelona association, initially the promoter of the hub, finally declined to submit a bid.

The idea is for Cospace to transform the five floors into offices specialized in the promotion and development of projects in the financial sector, supporting national and international startups and growth-stage companies. Specifically, in the field of financial technology (fintech and insurtech); sustainable finance; venture capital and early-stage investment (business angels); collective financing (crowdfunding) and lending (crowdlending); services, management companies, and investment funds; neobanks; digital payment systems; cybersecurity; big data or legal technologies (legaltech), among others.

According to the competition rules, the new operator must include in the financial hub at least 12 new annual projects from emerging, developing, or already consolidated companies; carry out a minimum of three annual joint training and/or hub revitalization events; and organize at least two annual events to connect entrepreneurs with investors.

According to the Govern, the launch of this center is "a strategic project," as its objective is "to position the Catalan capital in the international orbit as a driving center for the financial ecosystem, thanks to the synergies and economies of scale that can be generated by coordinating specialized activities of high added value in a close environment."

Headquartered in Ronda Sant Pere in Barcelona, Cospace is a company chaired by Gabriel Espin and also has Juan Carlos Morales and Franz Pallarès as administrators. The three are the founders of the Aticco group, which operates with the brands Aticco Workplaces, Aticco Lab, Aticco Living, and Aticco Ventures. The coworking startup was born in 2016 in the attic of the building that had been occupied by the courts in Ronda Sant Pere. Currently, it has seven coworking spaces and private office rentals, five of them in Barcelona (on Pallars, Bailén, Provença, Paseo Garcia Faria, and Urquinaona streets), one in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, and another in Madrid, on María de Molina street. In total, its seven buildings have 30,000 square meters.