The "Google Maps of cell culture" lands in Barcelona

Barcelona is a city with character, personality, and a lot of innovation. It has been called the technological hub of Southern Europe and it truly lives up to its name, just by taking a look at all the accelerators, companies, entities, and institutions solely dedicated to making the Catalan capital a true innovative ecosystem. For years, there was concern about talent drain and how workers sought jobs in companies in other countries, often in Northern Europe or the United States. Right now, however, Barcelona's technology sector is booming and shining more than ever, making it one of the preferred cities for entrepreneurs. The golden goose of this entire new entrepreneurial ecosystem, without a doubt, is the health sector. That's why many foreign companies are interested in Barcelona, see a future there, and land with the intention of integrating, improving, and building community.

One of the companies that has seen this great potential in Barcelona is Tolemy Bio, a British start-up whose goal is "to be the Google Maps of cell culture," in the words of its founder, Alex Ward. The company recently raised 1.4 million euros in a pre-seed funding round, which it will primarily allocate to R&D activities, and plans to create six highly skilled jobs. And they want all this talent here, in the Catalan capital. "Barcelona is the center of advanced therapies," says Ward, in a conversation with The New Barcelona Post. The reality is that his company is extremely innovative, and Ward believes it can fit into Barcelona's biotech ecosystem. In fact, he himself states that they are very interested in fully joining the community: "It would be a great honor to share space with great companies here like Onalabs," concludes the founder, referring to the Barcelona deeptech start-up, founded about ten years ago by Elisabet del Valle (CEO) and Xavier Muñoz, specialized in health monitoring through sweat.

Tolemy Bio has not landed in Barcelona alone, nor has it had a complicated path. Its desire to settle in the Catalan capital goes hand in hand with governmental objectives, as they have received support from Acció, the agency for business growth of the Department of Business and Work. In addition, they have established themselves in the facilities of SID/Barcelona, a science and innovation hub specialized in life sciences located between Esplugues de Llobregat and Sant Joan Despí. On this matter, Ward explained that "it also provides the infrastructure we need to develop and validate our technology close to potential collaborators and clients." Likewise, he celebrated that Acció has "played an important role" in helping them establish themselves in Catalonia, "from connecting us with the local ecosystem and potential partners to supporting us in the practical aspects of the company's implementation and growth here," assured the founder of Tolemy Bio.

A dream ecosystem

Beyond Barcelona's evident talent and innovative DNA, for Ward it is also a "very complete city." There are two key factors that have made them "not look for another place other than Barcelona." The first, in Ward's opinion, but also that of many foreigners, is the city itself. Barcelona has a sea, is cosmopolitan, and tends to be very popular with tourists and foreigners. Its climate, its people, and the infinite number of plans that can be made there make it a successful destination for many. According to Ward, for him and his partner Caelan Anderson "it was a key space for the entrepreneurial ecosystem, but also for culture." The second factor is costs. Barcelona remains a cheaper city than London or Cambridge, and for entrepreneurs, it was important to be able to have a larger team for their research. In this way, with lower costs than in other European cities, the start-up can spend more budget on human resources: "Here in Barcelona we have much more room for hiring," says Ward.

A start-up for the future

However, not only is Barcelona a good match for Tolemy Bio, but the British start-up can also help position the Catalan capital in terms of technology applied to health. Founded in 2024, this emerging company is dedicated to developing technological solutions for the life sciences sector. It collaborates with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to understand, anticipate, and optimize the behavior of cellular systems throughout the development and manufacturing of advanced therapies and other biological drugs, with the ultimate goal of achieving more efficient, predictable, and safe treatments. In the words of its founder, they "try to chart the easiest and most effective path for cellular systems."

Currently, the start-up's main effort focuses on Orbit, a platform designed to process the large volumes of data generated during cell culture and the manufacturing of biological products. This platform combines virtual cell models, biological data, and artificial intelligence to deepen the understanding and prediction of cellular system behavior, so that its clients, who are typically research centers and pharmaceutical companies, can make more informed decisions, reduce uncertainties in production processes, and shorten the journey between research and production. In short, an emerging company that can change the mapping of cellular systems and that, from now on, will do so from Barcelona.