The ability to secure investment was one of the most outstanding features of Catalan startups in 2021. Last year’s funding rounds attracted a total of 1.479 billion euros. Not only is this the highest figure to date, it also exceeds the previous record set in 2018 by no less than 65%.

Major transactions, such as Wallapop, Travelperk and UserZoom, contributed to the success of the Catalan entrepreneurial ecosystem. What’s more, the Barcelona & Catalonia Startup Hub identified a total of 1,902 start-ups in the region in 2021, a consolidation of what the Government of Catalonia describes as the first European hub in southern Europe.

International talent
The number of startups increased by 11.4% compared to 2020, which represents a sustained growth of as much as 75% if compared with the figures for 2016, the first year in which data was collected. The 1,902 companies listed in the “Analysis of the start-up ecosystem in Catalonia” report have a turnover of 1.710 billion euros, and employ a total of 19,300 people.

If this last figure is broken down, it reveals a strong capacity to attract international talent; 26% of these workers are foreign, as are 17% of the founders. These are the statistics that make it possible to speak of Barcelona as the second most popular hub in the European Union for establishing a startup.

Deep tech technologies
Almost half of the companies in the report were created in the last five years, and more than half of those who founded them already had entrepreneurial experience. The use of deep tech and an international focus are two of the outstanding features in many of these startups.

This international focus is evidenced by the fact that 73% of these companies have international customers, and 47% of their turnover comes from abroad. As for deep tech based on scientific discovery or innovative engineering, this is used by 47% of the companies studied, and 36% combine them with other technologies, such as artificial intelligence and big data.

Sectors
A sector analysis reveals that 16% of Catalan startups are in the health sector, 13% in business services, and 7% in ICT and mobile technologies. E-commerce and marketplaces feature as business models.

The “Analysis of the start-up ecosystem in Catalonia” report was compiled by Acció, the Government of Catalonia's trade and investment agency. Created in 2016, the directory on which it is based gathers data on emerging companies that have been operating for a maximum of ten years, and that have certain characteristics, namely being technology based, having scalable business models that can be replicated and applied in global environments, and being geared towards rapid growth.

^{Photo: Travelperk}