If national and foreign investment in Barcelona was experiencing one of its best moments just before the pandemic, the crisis generated by Covid-19 has only strengthened it. Despite the earthquake that economic activity and, consequently, the labor market have suffered in recent months, it seems that recovery is gradually consolidating and that investment continues to grow, especially that of international origin.
According to the recent report published by dealroom.co last October, Barcelona is in eighth position in Europe as the largest startup hub, with a total valuation exceeding 19,000 million euros. In addition, it has accumulated more than 46,000 million euros in investments destined for tech hubs since 2015, and has nine of the 20 potential unicorns that currently exist in Spain (which is in fifth place in the European ranking). As the icing on the cake, the Catalan capital has three of the four most valuable Spanish tech companies (Glovo, Wallbox and Letgo), whose total value exceeds 4,800 million euros.
Very positive data that are confirmed by the announcements of Festo, The Knot Worldwide and Essity of the installation in Barcelona of their technological centers which, added to those of companies such as Nestlé, Grifols or Microsoft, certify an upward trend, which has been catapulted by the news of the launch of a new global digital hub by Pepisco. The concept of hub, which could be translated as a logistics center, exchange center or connection point between various actors, has taken over the Catalan capital as a base of operations, and multinationals have not found the proposal bad at all. Nor has the Barcelona City Council, which currently plans to invest a figure close to 700 million euros in economic promotion, during the period 2020-2023.
And the municipal administration has decided to promote the creation of several reference innovation centers in Europe, among them the new Sportech hub that will be completed in Montjuïc over the next two years or 22@ Norte, which will add more than 100,000 new square meters of offices before the end of the year. "Barcelona and Catalonia have the second-best strategy in Europe to attract technological investments, with excellent prospects for receiving investments in innovation, technology, and startups," says Jaume Collboni, first deputy mayor of the Barcelona City Council.
Barcelona is in eighth position in Europe as a startup hub, with a value of 19 billionOne of the projects most valued by the city council is Barcelona Accelera, which seeks to promote innovative programs through private capital. "We seek to invest in private capital funds to accelerate the growth of entrepreneurial projects and startupsdifferentiated withthe objective of establishing technology as one of the city's backbone axes", concludes Collboni.
According to the Top Tech Cities of the Future ranking, by the prestigious fDi Magazine, Barcelona is in eighth position among the European tech cities of the future. Tech Barcelona (which includes Pier01, one of the five most innovative centers in the world according to Forbes magazine), the Mobile World Capital, 4YFN or DFactory BCN, among others, are some of the tech spaces with the greatest trajectory that have managed to mature and consolidate themselves as European benchmarks in recent years.
"The technological ecosystem has matured a lot in recent years, I would dare to say, 20 years. Barcelona has consolidated itself among the top five entrepreneurial cities at a European level," points out Miguel Vicente, president of Tech Barcelona. Vicente highlights that a clear sign of this is that liquidity has increased this year by more than 40% in terms of venture capital funds, "a trend that, if it continues, could contribute to the goal that in six or seven years the technology sector represents more than 25% of our GDP."
"A few years ago you might have thought that the digital economy was a very specific sector, but as this develops, there will no longer be specific hubs and much more transversal sectors will emerge", points out Fèlix Ortega, general director of Barcelona Activa. One of the facts that demonstrate this maturity is the celebration, at the end of last September, of Wayra Investors Day, at the Sant Pau Modernist Enclosure. This is a networking event led by Telefónica's technological hub, with the aim of presenting the startups in which the company has already invested through the Telefónica Open Innovation fund and putting them in contact with international investors. In total, more than 100 investors from all over the world attended this year's event, "a milestone to achieve more scale-ups (consolidated startups that seek to scale the model internationally) that jump into the European market," explains Wayra's head in Barcelona, Marta Antúnez.
The health tech sector, on the rise
"The health technology sector is one of the spearheads of the growing importance of the Catalan capital on the European continent. According to the BioRegion Report 2020, published by Biocat and CataloniaBio&HealthTech, during the past year Catalan health startups managed to raise 226 million euros in investment, the highest figure in history and double the resources of two years ago.
"Barcelona has everything to continue growing in the health tech sector: a powerful business fabric, technological talent, and reference hospitals in Europe," explains Ricard Castellet, digital director of Gebro Pharma, an Austrian pharmaceutical laboratory with an important delegation in the Catalan capital. One of the most important development centers in health matters is the Barcelona Health Hub (BHH), located in the Modernist Precinct of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau. It is a leading innovation center that promotes innovation in digital health and connects companies and startups in the sector with investors and health organizations. Last November 9, the BHH also celebrated the first edition of the Barcelona Deep Tech Node awards at BIZ Barcelona, together with Hello Tomorrow, a prestigious Parisian accelerator specialized in high-impact technology.
Catalan health startups managed to raise 226 million euros in investment in 2020The investment, mainly directed at virtual reality, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and Big Data projects, has a very important part of international participation. According to the report, the main financing comes from venture capital, which accumulated 140 million euros last year.62.2% of this amount comes from foreign investors, which have multiplied by five since 2015, going from 14 then to 73 in 2020.
The health sector represents, in general figures, 7.3% of the GDP of the Catalan region and is made up of more than 1,200 companies that employ approximately 230,000 people. Of these, 55,440 people are dedicated to the medical industry and technological development in the health field, reporting profits in 2018 of up to 19,767 million euros. Among all the subsectors of the industry, the most prominent was the pharmaceutical sector, which topped the list last year with profits exceeding 9,158 million euros, followed by biotechnology, 4,098 million euros, and medical technology, another 3,109 million euros. The digital health division accumulated a figure of 119 million euros.
Deep tech, the latest revolution
One of the latest developments in the technological landscape has been the emergence of the famous deep tech. Although the name may sound slightly strange and confusing, it is simply that subsector of the technological field that is dedicated to providing revolutionary solutions and changes, especially to traditional industries. Through artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology and Big Data, deep tech companies achieve changes through technology that cannot be easily replaced and that has significant benefits in the medium and long term. "Unlike the startups that have appeared in recent years, this sector guarantees real solutions to global problems through a truly solid patent and project," argues Oscar Salas, director of The Collider, the Mobile World Capital innovation program specialized in deep tech.
Artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology and Big Data, key in deep techDespite the good investment figures being registered this year, which, according to the report fromdealroom.co, in the first half of 2021 in Spain, the figure of 1.9 billion euros of investment instartups(in the first half of 2019 there were 700 million euros of investment and in the whole of 2020 another 1,100 million euros), Oscar Salas alert of the lack of conversion into market value"In Europe, thestartupofdeep techthey have a short-term average value that is five times that of ours, and with the United States the difference is even greater," concludes Salas, who argues that "we still have a long way to go but we have all the ingredients to end up becoming a world reference."
Training, talent
Barcelona also stands out as one of the most powerful training centers for digital positions in Europe. The campus of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, for example, stands out for being one of the best centers for scientific-technological innovation in the academic field, in addition to the new 42 Barcelona programming campus, of the Technology Park, located in Nou Barris. "According to data extracted from the Annual Report of the ICT and Content Sector in Spain, the demand for digital profiles has increased by almost 40% year-on-year in the city and 72% of these jobs are permanent contracts," says Álvaro Ortin, CEO of the digital consultancy Enzyme Advising Group.
The boost that the Barcelona Sports Tech can give in the Montjuïc Sports Palace, Tech Barcelona's plans to inaugurate a new fintech hub in the Barcelona Stock Exchange or the recent announcement of the installation of the first quantum computing hub in Southern Europe financed by the European Union demonstrate that the innovation areas growing in the Catalan capital cover very different plots, but with a common denominator: to make Barcelona a world reference in the tech sector.