In a moment of crisis, which has slowed the pace of investment rounds, the Barcelona City Council has decided to boost some 150 startups by investing a total of 50 million euros through six venture capital funds. The objective of this initiative is to facilitate emerging companies' continued access to financing and innovation, in addition to allowing the council to earn money and obtain a return.
For years, the City Council has been trying different ways to support the city's startups through venture capital, adapting at all times to the ecosystem's level of maturity. In 2000, it created the company Barcelona Emprèn, one of the first funds that existed in the city and throughout the country. This completely pioneering initiative allowed the promotion of innovative companies such as Fractus, a spin-off of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) to whom we owe the fact that mobile phones do not have antennas.
Nine years later, when a couple of funds had already appeared in the Catalan capital, but not many, the council participated in one from the management company Nauta Capital with five million euros. It also served to generate success stories such as that of the emerging company Social Point, dedicated to the development of free games and applications for mobile phones.
With a more developed ecosystem, the City Council has been able to update this commitment to the city's emerging companies ten years later by launching Barcelona Accelera, a call to invest ten million euros in six private venture capital funds, which had to be based in Barcelona and be in the process of constitution or capital increase. A total of ten management companies and funds applied, and the chosen ones have been Aldea Iberia Tech ---three million---, 4founders Capital II, SC Growth Fund II Plus ---two million each---; Sabadell Asabys Health Innovation Investment, Invivo Ventures and The Extension Fund ---one million each---.
Who's who
- Aldea Ventures, the entity that will receive the most public money, is a new platform to invest in technological startups promoted by Gonzalo Rodés ---former president of Barcelona Global--- and by Carlos Trenchs, former executive of CaixaCapital Risc and CaixaBank.
- 4Founders Capital is an investment group led by veterans of Barcelona's entrepreneurial ecosystem, such as Jesús Monleón (founder of eMagister, SeedRocket and Offerum), Marc Badosa, Marek Fodor (co-founder of Atrápalo) and Javier Pérez-Tenessa (founder of eDreams).
- SC Growth is the fund created by the Barcelona-based management company Suma Capital to invest in companies with revenues between 10 million and 100 million euros. Suma is led by Enrique Tombas and David Arroyo.
- Sabadell Asabys Health Innovation Investments is a biomedicine investment fund founded by Josep Ll. Sanfeliu and Clara Campàs, with Banco Sabadell as its main investor.
- Invivo Ventures is a new fund specialized in health founded by Lluís Pareras and Albert Ferrer based on the experience accumulated in HealthEquity, an investment group that was promoted by the Official College of Physicians of Barcelona.
- The Extension Fund is a recently created investment vehicle that, according to Expansión, is managed by Riva y García and is linked to Antai Venture Builder, the digital business factory of Miguel Vicente ---president of Barcelona TechCity--- and Gerard Olivé.
Collboni: "Barcelona positions itself as an entrepreneurial city"
Barcelona Accelera is an example of the new financial strategy that the city council is promoting to become a benchmark administration in the field of entrepreneurship. It does so through Barcelona Activa, which will manage it. For the first deputy mayor for Economy, Labor, Competitiveness and Finance and president of Barcelona Activa, Jaume Collboni, "Barcelona positions itself as an entrepreneurial city, with new formulas to boost economic activity" through this investment with venture capital funds. "Although it is not a usual operation in the municipal sphere, Barcelona Accelera offers us an unbeatable opportunity to grow our innovative ecosystem and create quality jobs, reinforcing the city's digital capital," defends Collboni.
Project financing is one of the three pillars of the city council's strategy to reinforce Barcelona as the digital capital of Southern Europe, based on public-private collaboration. The other two are attracting talent and creating new spaces to host business initiatives with this purpose, such as the transformation of the Correos building into an innovation hub for companies.