Barcelona Activa's Startup Lab counts 47 start-ups that have raised €75 million

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Barcelona Activa's Startup Lab, which took over from the city's older incubation service, now counts 47 start-ups across its Glòries and Nou Barris centres. Together they have raised €75 million, according to the Dossier Barcelona Startups. Thirty-five of them are deep tech. They employ 532 people, founders included, and bring in more than €18 million in combined revenue. Companies that pass through the incubation service show a 76% survival rate in their fifth year, against a 42% average for Spanish companies.

The city also keeps track of the money it helps others find. Its business office says 47% of the applications it advised on were approved, worth €229 million in grants and subsidies from programmes such as ENISA, CDTI and Horizon Europe. Separately, a municipal investment fund strategy running since 2020 has reached 134 start-ups, with each public euro drawing in €17.8 of private capital, €215 million in all. Leverage of 17.8 to one is not a phrase usually associated with a city council.

Among the alumni, Meetmaps, founded in 2015, makes event-management software and now handles around 5,000 events a year in 30 countries, Sónar among them. BitMetrics, founded in 2017, sells computer vision for industrial automation in 10 countries. The dossier counts 1,508 start-ups in Barcelona, which it ranks as the fifth ecosystem in the EU and the first in southern Europe.