Image: © Pawel Pajor/Stock.adobe.com
From fintech to photonics, Barcelona has many strong start-ups in its sci-tech ecosystem that are shooting for the stars – sometimes literally.
Catalonia is one of Spain’s richest and most highly industrialised regions and home to the city of Barcelona.
It also plays host to an impressive number of tech centres, with 160 across the region in 2024, rising almost 10pc on the previous year. These hubs created more than 6,000 new jobs in 2024 and a significant portion of these are based in Barcelona.
The city was also the birthplace of several well known sci-tech start-ups, including Deliveroo rival Glovo, which raised the highest funding round in history in the Spanish digital sector in 2021.
Other successes in the city include popular online form creator Typeform, which was last valued at $935m in 2022, just shy of unicorn status, while fintech ID Finance secured $150m in debt funding this time last year.
So, what other start-ups from the bright city of Barcelona should you be watching? We selected five to keep on your radar.
Cafler
Founded by Ricard Guillem and Íñigo Diego in 2021, Cafler is a platform that aims to give car users a one-stop-shop for on-demand services such as car washes, maintenance and fuel as well as insurance, renting, parking and more.
The Barcelona-based start-up has raised more than €10m from venture capital investors since it was first founded, including €3m in venture debt financing at the end of 2024.
Flanks
Flanks was founded in 2019 by European Finance Forbes 30 under 30 honouree Joaquim de la Cruz, former global head of Santander Private Banking Álvaro Morales and software engineer Sergi Lao.
The wealth management automation platform enables advisers to deliver personalised services to a broader range of investors. Yesterday (26 February), it announced a €14m raise to further accelerate the company’s growth into Europe.
Jolt
Green hydrogen start-up Jolt is seeking to revolutionise electrode production with its patented catalytic coating technology.
The company was founded by Leon Rizzi, Alberto Bucci, Arturo Vilavella and Julio Lloret-Fillol, having spun out from the Catalan Institute for Chemical Research. Jolt bagged €6m in funding in 2023 to develop its technology and last year, it won an award for Best Start-up in Sustainability at the Barcelona New Economy Week.
Qurv
Another Barcelona-based spin-out, Qurv came out of the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), a research centre based in the Spanish city, after years of photonics research.
Founded in 2020 by a team of researchers, their wide-spectrum image sensors powered by quantum-dot technology can be integrated with current CMOS low-cost, high-manufacturability processes. The company is part of a project that received €5.5m in funding to explore the next generation of computer vision.
Sateliot
Satellite communication start-up Sateliot aims to develop and launch a constellation of low-Earth orbit nanosatellites to provide 5G coverage for internet of things (IoT) devices.
Founded in 2018 by Jaume Sanpera, Jose Ramon Carrero Munoz, Marco Guadalupi and Albert Pujol Gurgui, the company secured €6m in funding from Banco Santander in January 2024 and a further €30m loan from the European Investment Bank in December.
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