Barcelona is one of Europe’s top cities in the startup scene. Its entrepreneurial ecosystem is experiencing more growth and the region is today home of 1,900 startups, according to the Analysis of the Barcelona & Catalonia Startup Hub’s 2021.
Health, business services, ICT/Mobile and leisure account for 42% of the startups and the 86.8% of the startups work with technologies linked to industry 4.0. More particularly, 36% of those start-ups use Artificial Intelligence and Big Data as their primary technology.
As well, the city of Barcelona is the 2nd favourite EU startup hub of founders for setting up a startup (17% of founders see the city as an attractive hub).
Its strong and mature tech ecosystem keeps on attracting the attention of local and international talent (26% of employees are foreign), and the city ranks as the 2nd European hub with the highest percentage of international founders (17%). This makes Barcelona one of the most cosmopolitan cities, just behind Berlin and ahead of cities such as Amsterdam or Stockholm.
Additionally, the attractiveness of Barcelona-based startups has become more evident throughout 2021, with a record number of operations and investment that broke records. A total of 154 closed investment operations ranks Barcelona as the 4th European city with more investment rounds carried out in 2021, ahead of tech hubs such as Munich and Stockholm.
All of these facts places the city as one of the most dynamic start-up ecosystems in Europe. Its pool of talent, innovative environment, entrepreneurial mindset and quality of life are rapidly positioning Barcelona as one of the best cities in Europe in the start-up scene.
