The Generalitat has opened the tender to award the project for the creation of a financial hub in the historic Barcelona Stock Exchange building, located on Paseo de Gràcia. The idea is to allocate five floors of this central building to emerging or growth-phase companies in the fintech and insurtech sectors, as well as microfinance platforms or cybersecurity services. According to the Govern, this project "can be considered a unique opportunity to turn Barcelona into a driving center for the financial ecosystem in Catalonia."
This Thursday, the Official Gazette of the Generalitat published the resolution with the details of the public call, and management companies interested in leading this project can submit their offer until October 31. According to the tender, the aim is to find "an operator that carries out the promotion, revitalization, and competitiveness of financial services around technology, sustainable finance, and investment entrepreneurship in Catalonia."
The winning company of this tender will manage 5 floors of the building, specifically floors 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, for a period of six years, between 2024 and 2029. The Generalitat will grant the use of this space to the operator in the form of an in-kind subsidy, since this area has an annual market value of 648,000 euros. In exchange for being able to use these spaces, the winner of the tender will have the responsibility of filling them, that is, transforming them into offices specialized in hosting startups linked to the financial sector.
Specifically, the operator must include in the hub at least 12 new annual projects from emerging, developing, or already consolidated companies; carry out a minimum of three annual joint training and/or hub revitalization events; or organize at least two annual events to connect entrepreneurs with investors. The challenge is that by bringing together companies from the same field, economies of scale and high value-added activities are generated, in addition to providing content to an emblematic building and boosting the financial sector in Barcelona, which has lost strength in recent years in favor of Madrid.
According to the Generalitat, the center will accommodate national and international companies in the field of technological insurance (fintech and insurtech); sustainable finance; venture capital and early-stage investment (business angels); crowdfunding and crowdlending; services, management companies and investment funds; neobanks; digital payment systems; cybersecurity; big data; or legal technologies (legaltech), among others.