Barcelona, the third best European city to create a 'startup'

Barcelona is the third most valued European city among entrepreneurs to start a new company or startup, according to the Startup Heatmap Europe ranking. In recent months, the Catalan capital has moved ahead of places like Amsterdam ---a city with which it was competing for third position last year-- or Lisbon and Munich, and is only behind Berlin and London.

In 2021, 20% of startup creators have already pointed to Barcelona as the place where they could imagine starting their project, a percentage that grows by 2.69% compared to the previous edition, when the Catalan capital was in third position competing with Amsterdam. Meanwhile, Madrid is in position number 10 and Valencia in 17.

Barcelona's rise in the Startup Heatmap Europe is validated by the European entrepreneurial ecosystem, which sees among the city's values its urban planning, the local dynamism of the entire innovation and technology environment, the availability of talent, and profitability; in addition to the creation of almost 300 monthly jobs among startups, according to data collected by the ranking from Linkedin.

It also shows a preference for the Catalan capital in terms of the business generated by companies and the attraction of investment. So much so that Startup Heatmap Europe reveals that, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the set of local startups generated 2,000 million euros, highlighting that between 2019 and 2021 this turnover has increased by 65% compared to the 2016-2018 period.

Regarding investment, Barcelona is one of the best-positioned places in terms of the increase in resources from venture capital, especially for initial financing of emerging projects (seed investment), which according to the report receive between 500,000 euros and 2,000,000 euros; with a constant annual average growth of 10% in the last 3 years.

Specifically, it says of Barcelona that it is one of the 12 European entrepreneurship hubs that has led to the creation of new unicorns throughout 2021, thanks to raising investments of more than 1,000 million euros.

This is the seventh edition of the annual ranking, Top 50 most popular startup hubs in Europe, prepared by the consultancy DEEP Ecosystems, which gathers the opinion of more than 20,000 entrepreneurs from all over Europe. The report data, published this Saturday by the Barcelona City Council, show that 1 out of 5 respondents would choose Barcelona as the headquarters for their incipient business project.

Barcelona is one of the 12 European entrepreneurship hubs that has led to the creation of new unicorns throughout 2021

The first deputy mayor, Jaume Collboni, interprets Barcelona's rise in this ranking as a corroboration "of the good work being done to make the city the ideal ecosystem in which the most innovative business initiatives can invest, grow, and generate new jobs." "Barcelona," he adds, "has great strengths: it has the talent, great educational and research centers, and the best possible environment to work and live."