Startups, Made in Barcelona

This week, The New Barcelona Post, as we already did a few weeks ago with the medical and scientific field, has been dedicated to X-raying the entrepreneurial ecosystem of our city. Barcelona is no longer just a Mediterranean postcard: it has become, in a very short time, a laboratory where ideas can turn into global companies.

This year the city has consolidated itself as the fifth hub for startups in the European Union and the 33rd in the world, after climbing five positions in just one year. It is the first European city in attracting international investment projects, and it is the third preferred place in Europe to undertake.

The data speak for themselves: almost 2,300 active startups and some 19,000 tech professionals fill the local map today. A density much higher than that of other much larger European capitals than Barcelona. This critical mass is nourished by an incomparable quality of life, cutting-edge digital infrastructures and an agenda of events that concentrates global capital and talent: 4YFN, Tech Spirit, MWC, BNEW, ISE or Smart City Expo, to name just a few examples.

But the real proof are the hyper-growth cases. TravelPerk, as we explained in The New Barcelona Post, closed a 192 million euro round this January and has already reached a valuation of 2.7 billion dollars. Factorial consolidates its unicorn status. Wallbox exports electric chargers to half the planet. And Glovo, in a consolidation process after its exit with Delivery Hero, has become a Harvard case study.

Meanwhile, however, the list does not stop and, fortunately, continues to grow: Exoticca, Submer, Heura or Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech. A demonstration that Barcelona plays in high-impact verticals and within a global league.

Private initiative, as we have been explaining this week, does not walk alone. Programs such as Barcelona Activa, the Generalitat's Pla Lidera or the new Barcelona Impulsa plan reinforce public-private collaboration and inject capital, spaces and mentoring at all growth phases.

Barcelona is a brand that, fortunately, needs few introductions

Furthermore, Barcelona, in a global scenario full of improvisations and setbacks in the field of freedoms, has the capacity to speak to the world with its own discourse. With a "Made in Barcelona" language. An integrating discourse, with creativity as its flag and defending a plural system of freedoms. Barcelona already has speed. Now, however, it needs persistence and, above all, needs to be ambitious without neglecting, as Mar Galtés pointed out, the people of the city and the companies of the country. 

Barcelona is a brand that, fortunately, needs few introductions. The moment is propitious, as brilliant ideas, nowadays, know no borders. However: they need a place to take root. And to do so easily: without absurd administrative complications and with the conviction that, if we play our cards right, that place can be Barcelona.