The Barcelona entrepreneurial ecosystem adds a new player: the Hub BStartup. Banco Sabadell has inaugurated a hub of more than 1,000 square meters in Passatge Mercader, 100% dedicated to startups and scale-ups, with the aim of turning it into a node for financial services, investment, and connection between entrepreneurs, investors, and emerging companies. "We want to be a complementary piece" to an already robust ecosystem, and do so by adding "financial expertise," highlights the director of BStartup, Yolanda Pérez.
The new Hub BStartup Barcelona will initially serve more than 1,800 client startups, a figure that the entity expects to raise to 2,000 by the end of 2026. The space offers comprehensive financial support —from bank financing to equity investment through BStartup10, the bank's venture capital vehicle— and has about twenty professionals specialized in this segment.
But the hub goes beyond strictly banking activity: it emerges as a space open to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Meeting rooms, hot desk areas, and informal workspaces will allow founders and teams to use it as a meeting point in the city center. The goal is to foster conversation, debate, and the generation of opportunities among ecosystem players.
At a time when digital management is key in the financial sector, BStartup is betting on in-person interaction: "Networking is still essential. We need this contact, and it is fundamental in the business world, where generating trust is basic. And trust is also generated in spaces that are not strictly professional," highlights Pérez. From this perspective, the hub will offer meeting spaces, such as a multipurpose auditorium, meeting rooms —with five spaces, with capacity from four people to twenty—, and a terrace that will host gatherings and events.
To create these spaces, a partial renovation of the building has been carried out. Built in the 70s, the property was acquired by CAM in 1998, when it was used for administrative banking spaces. First renovated in 2009, it became part of Sabadell with the acquisition of CAM in 2012. Since then, it has hosted various uses of the bank, until it has become the hub: "We had been looking for a space to open for a long time."
While they couldn't find space in Barcelona, Sabadell inaugurated the Hub BStartup Madrid in 2024. In fact, Madrid and Barcelona concentrate more than 50% of the young innovative and technological companies in Spain. The Madrid experience supports the model: during the first year, the Hub BStartup Madrid served more than 1,450 clients and hosted 59 entrepreneurship events, with the participation of more than 3,400 people linked to the ecosystem.
"With these new spaces, we consolidate our commitment to startups and scale-ups," says Carlos Ventura, general director and director of Business Banking at Banco Sabadell. Ventura recalled that since the creation of BStartup in 2013, the entity has aimed to be the main financial partner for this type of company, betting on specialization, proximity, and active participation within its ecosystem. Currently, BStartup has more than 6,000 clients nationwide, and has positioned itself as an active agent in early-stage investment, with equity stakes in 104 startups.
With this inauguration, Banco Sabadell also reinforces its presence in the center of Barcelona, where it concentrates up to six types of specialized offices within a radius of just over one kilometer, ranging from private banking to services for large companies. Now, the new opening focused on startups contributes to advancing Barcelona as one of the main entrepreneurial hubs in Southern Europe.