On June 14th the final event of the first edition of “Venture on the Road” was celebrated at Torre Banco Sabadell auditorium in Barcelona. Venture on the Road is an initiative developed by BStartup (Banco Sabadell) and SeedRocket. BotsLovers, a firm specialising in the design and development of chatbots to optimise communications with customers beat three other finalists after the judges voted. The panel of judges included Vicente Arias (SeedRocket), Juan Margenat (Marfeel), Manuel Jaffrin (GetApp), Jaime Biel (Faraday), Lenka Kolarova (SeedRcoket 4Founders Capital) and Marta Campillo (BStartup). The judges also participated in a round table discussion for experts, where they debated on innovation as a key factor in the success of a business project, moderated by Yolanda Pérez, Director of the BStartup programme.
“Venture on the Road”is a road show which has been held between October 2017 and June (2018). The roadshow has been held in Spain, specifically in Seville, Oviedo, Madrid, Palma, San Sebastián, Valencia and Vigo. Its objective is to create a meeting space for entrepreneurs in the technological and digital sectors and for the presentation of projects and ideas. The participants had a limited amount of time to explain their business model before the BStartup and Seed Rocket teams selected the best 4 projects in each city. Afterwards, a panel of judges selected the winning startup from each city. The winning teams attended the final of the first edition held in Barcelona: from Seville- Lendismart, Madrid-BotsLovers, San Sebastían-TheBest5 and Vigo-Rocket Firms.
From the cities where Venture on the Road has been held, 28 startups have actively competed, from the 200 startups which applied to this first edition, which have developed a product or service. More than 80 investors with an interest in implementing new ideas have also assisted. BotsLovers takes away a €3,000 prize from BStartup, also receiving an invite to the Campus de Emprendedores in Madrid, as well as being able to enjoy an advice and guidance sessions (3 hours) from SeedRocket, the first catalyst of TIC startups in Spain.
MORE THAN 2,700 STARTUP CUSTOMERS
BStartup is the business division of Banco Sabadell which offers specialist banking and financing services to startups. Over the last few years Banco Sabadell, chaired by Josep Oliu, has deployed a global support strategy for business projects in their development stages. In 2013 it created BStartup, through which it launched BStartup10, an investment vehicle for companies in their early stages of development. In 2015 Sabadell Venture Capital was created for capital investments and venture debt of up to 2 million euros in startups in their seed and A series stages. In 2017 InnoCells was created, the bank’s hub for new digital business. Today, Banco Sabadell has more than 2,700 startup customers. In the last four years the bank has granted more than €150 million in financing and investment projects for this segment of the market.
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Final event of Venture on the road in Barcelona
