Last year Barcelona ranked as the fifth city in terms of startup investment, the third best HUB in Europe and as the most predominant city in the Spanish startup ecosystem, with an increase of 11% in the number of startups resident in this city compared to 2017, totaling 1,197 startups.Why Barcelona Does it attract that much attention to emerging companies?Barcelona has established itself as a business ecosystem and technological events with strong public support, as well as a great source of both local and international talent, allowing global companies to be created and established. In addition, Barcelona has an exceptional geographical location that serves as an enclave for many companies since it is the gateway to southern Europe, being the capital of the Mediterranean area and a perfect link platform with Latin America. All of this makes the Ciudad Condal in an excellent destination for new startups and established companies. In addition, if we add to the pros their consideration as The second Smart City in the world, second only to Singapore, the city's leadership is further reinforced compared to other competent locations. Its popularity as a Smart City is mainly linked to its energy and sustainability policies. In terms of investment in startups, Barcelona achieved 90% more development over the past year, increasing the figure from 453 million euros in 2017 to 871 million euros in 2018. This increase accounted for 66.4% of all investment in Spain over the past year. Comparing with the rest of the state, The two of us Main Hubs, Barcelona and Madrid are the ones that contribute the most capital to the whole of the Spanish state. While Barcelona earned 871 million last year, Madrid contributed 342 million and the rest of the state totaled 220 million euros. Both cities stand out in innovation metrics, ranking 15th and 16th in the European ranking.In this regard, Madrid slightly outperforms Barcelona due to its higher investment in R&D. Despite this, both stand out for their innovation spaces, as well as technological districts such as 22@ in Barcelona and the area of Madrid Norte, which host an increasing number of companies in this sector. The sectors in which the most investment has been made have been Marketplace (72%), E-commerce (69%), mobile apps (69%) and SaaS (20%), thus confirming that Barcelona is a city focused on technology. On the other hand, the top prevailing industries are the Home (54%), Health and Wellness (22%), Transportation (17%) and B2B Software (15%) industries. [caption id="attachment_9537" align="alignnone” width="454"]
Graphic of the main sectors in Barcelona [/caption] [caption id="attachment_9536" align="alignnone” width="393"]
Graph of the main industries in Barcelona [/caption] Among the industries that represent the highest percentage, the sector Biotech In terms of health and well-being, it characterizes the region of Catalonia, integrating more than 1,000 companies and generating 31,087 million euros every year. 93.8% of these companies are concentrated in the province of Barcelona and in this sense the city of Barcelona itself accounts for more than half of these companies, specifically 51.9%, which places the Catalan capital as the leader in the sector, not only within the framework of Catalonia but also within the Spanish sphere. Barcelona continues to focus on globalizing the Barcelona brand with the aim of stimulating its local ecosystem, attracting both future investors and international organizations. This will serve to further increase the technological scene by competing with leading cities such as London or Berlin.Since Intelectium, being located in Barcelona, we can see these changes first-hand and notice how each passing year the city achieves more international renown. More and more companies are choosing to invest in Barcelona or to set up their headquarters there, and the number of entrepreneurs is increasing at a breakneck pace, giving a city greater strength and maturity to compete with other cities in the world.
