Startup Grind Barcelona celebrates its 2nd annual conference

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ounded in Silicon Valley in 2010, Startup Grind is the world's largest startup community that inspires and connects more than 1 million entrepreneurs from 500 cities around the world. It drives the technology ecosystem in 150 countries through organizing events, media impact, and collaboration agreements with organizations such as Google for Entrepreneurs.

What is never missing are the monthly talks with successful founders, innovators, and/or investors who explain the lessons learned along the way to building great renowned companies. In these years, Startup Grind has held 5000 fireside chats and, at the same time, has focused on accompanying entrepreneurs by connecting them with new partners, helping them in the search for funding, or acquiring new users and clients. Derek Andersen is its founder and CEO and the main person responsible for spreading the values of Startup Grind around the world.

"It is known that the Pay-it-forward culture is the essence of this ecosystem. Startup Grind is based on these fundamental values and has had a great impact on the local ecosystem in Stockholm, Sweden and the Nordic countries, as well as on the global ecosystem for startups. The values of Giving, Helping and Making Friends are factors that influence the lifestyle of entrepreneurs, investors and community builders around the world. I know that this fact is one of the reasons why Stockholm continues to build great global companies," explains Jonas Almeling of Startup Grind Sweden

This Wednesday, November 14, Barcelona celebrates its 2nd annual conference, positioning itself on the global entrepreneurship map. Only six cities in the community have this privilege, the most powerful in the world: Redwood City (Global), Mexico City (central-south-America), Toronto (North America), Melbourne (APAC), UK (Europe-north) and Barcelona (Europe-south and North Africa). They are chosen based on the number of events per year, level of speakers, average attendance, and other internal metrics.

In Barcelona, Startup Grind was born in 2014 and is led by Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit, demonstrating the commitment to Barcelona as a key city in the technological field. Àlex was chosen Chapter Director of the year 2016, but he prefers to state that the merit belongs to Barcelona and that, therefore, the city and its ecosystem received the recognition.

In the last four years, Barcelona has organized some 60 events, with the participation of great local figures such as Carlota Pi (HolaLuz), Mar Alarcón (Social Car), Miguel Vicente (Wallapop), Christian Rodriguez (Byhours), as well as international ones like Ingrid Vershuren (Dow Jones) and Vincent Rosso (Blablacar).

"Due to our affiliation with Google and our positioning and visibility, people contact us before landing here. We are something similar to ambassadors of Barcelona in the business world. Our challenge is to position our conference as the Tech conference at a European level and to grow the Startup Grind community to be a great reference in Europe, as it already is in America and Asia," says Àlex Rodríguez.

"Barcelona has a long history with the Mobile World Congress as a great example, building companies in a digital world. It is also a very well-connected city, not only with the Spanish market, but with many other markets. I see excellent examples of international companies landing in Barcelona. The Swedish company TechBuddy is a great example of this. I believe many others will follow suit and connect with Barcelona's ecosystem." Jonas Almeling, Startup Grind Sweden