The world of technology has surrendered to the dynamism, talent and brilliant ideas that have been transmitted by the startups participating in the tenth edition of 4YFN (4 Years From Now), the reference event of the international entrepreneurial ecosystem, integrated into Mobile World Congress.
For four days, thousands of executives and managers attending the MWC have toured the two most densely packed pavilions of the congress in search of inspiration and future business opportunities. They have been joined by more than a thousand investors specifically registered in 4YFN, eager to detect the most promising projects and attract them to their funds, as well as hundreds of entrepreneurs in networking mode.
The extraordinary influx of a cosmopolitan public with its radar set on new trends and the most innovative solutions has been a constant from day one, far exceeding expectations. At this point, no one doubts that the unstoppable growth of 4YFN must be taken very seriously.
Once again, Banco Sabadell's BStartup, which has also recently celebrated its tenth anniversary and has supported 4YFN since its first edition, was once again Main Sponsor of the event and its stand, one of the most dynamic. From this space, 15 of the most interesting projects in its portfolio were announced, focused on health, sustainability and ICT: from an exoskeleton called to revolutionize neurorehabilitation, to a technology that transforms marine structures into biodiversity hotspots, to a solution that performs Big Data analysis in the cloud one hundred times faster.
Furthermore, with the aim of being another agent in the startup ecosystem, facilitating networking and valuable contacts, BStartup offered a complete content program, with the collaboration of prestigious speakers and investors.
During his visit to 4YFN, Josep Oliu, president of Banco Sabadell, highlighted that the entity “saw ten years ago that there was an opportunity here to support entrepreneurs who wanted to start a business so that their project could be successful. We thought that Sabadell, which is a business bank, had to be in the 4YFN with young and entrepreneurial talent.”
For his part, Carlos Ventura, head of Business Banking and Network at Banco Sabadell, pointed out that “4YFN is the present and future of the business world, because startups have more and more weight in our economy. As a bank, we give them the specialized response they need, with managers who understand companies that grow very quickly, usually based on technology, with innovative and even disruptive business models and where talent is central."
AI has captured the attention of 4YFN attendees to such an extent that, as Yolanda Pérez, director of BStartup, observed, “there were even companies that had very powerful technologies in this area and did not even mention it to differentiate themselves.” According to the directive, the most interesting projects that have been discovered this week are those “of artificial intelligence applied to business efficiency, but also to health, advanced cybersecurity solutions, some first quantum applications combined with AI, robotics, some green tech, and a lot of innovation in health.”
At the event it has been clearly demonstrated that artificial intelligence is called to simplify processes and solve them more quickly: “there will be more and more technologies that converge, to make the lives of users and also companies easier,” said Yolanda Pérez.
In this sense, Banco Sabadell is working on several AI applications that improve service to its users. Marc Armengol, its Director of Operations and Technology, announced that “we have more than 150 use cases and we are piloting more than ten initiatives. The key is how we apply all those technology improvements for the business, to serve our customers.”
Artificial intelligence is also in the crosshairs of investment funds that bet on startups, as was evident in the session on upcoming trends in Venture Capital organized by BStartup on Tuesday. The leaders of four large investors -Itxaso del Palacio, General Partner of Notion; Aquilino Peña, co-founder and Managing Partner of Kibo Ventures; Montse Suárez, founder
Digital health initiatives generate increasing interest in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and this has translated into a notable growth of the exhibition space, as well as the number and quality of content and experts within the 4YFN.
For several editions, BStartup has given it a prominent role, and this year it has reinforced that commitment. Thus, six of the 16 startups in its Health vertical presented their promising projects: Able Human Motion, which has created the lightest, quickest to adjust and most accessible exoskeleton for neurorehabilitation in the world; Time is Brain, a medical diagnosis device in the shape of a headband and capable of monitoring brain electrical activity in real time in people who suffer a stroke; Oxolife, which develops a new treatment to improve the female fertility rate, acting specifically on embryo implantation; Nanobots Therapeutix, the result of research to effectively combat bladder cancer through nanorobots capable of penetrating tumor tissue and eliminating cancer cells; Sycai Medical, a medical assistant that relies on artificial intelligence to help radiologists detect pancreatic cystic lesions; and Improfit, a computer vision-based platform that provides interactive tools aimed at rehabilitation and training.
In addition, BStartup hosted a session dedicated to investment trends in health and biotechnology Venture Capital, with the participation of Damià Tormo, General Partner of Columbus VenturesPartners; Clara Campàs, co-founder and Managing Partner of Asabys Partners; Pablo Prieto, Managing Partner of CG Health Ventures and Montserrat Vendrell, partner of Aliath Bioventuresen. The speakers focused on the enormous opportunities brought about by the latest technological and scientific developments, such as AI, personalized medicine, genomics, advanced therapies or cost-effective technological solutions that improve patient care.
Barcelona Health Hub also actively participated on the BStartup stage on the four days of the event, organizing talks on the limits of digital health, the financing of clinical validation, the role of new digital leaders in pharma and the essential role of the hospitals.
In this edition of 4YFN, BStartup paid special attention to those scalable projects that seek to contribute to the decarbonization of the planet through technology and innovation, that promote the energy transition, Smart cities, sustainable mobility, industry 4.0 or circular economy.
To give renewed impetus to its Green vertical, in operation for four years, the Banco Sabadell service had four promising companies in the field of sustainability at its stand on Monday: Ocean Ecostructures, one of the five finalists for the 4YFN Awards , whose technology reverses the negative impact that marine structures have historically had, turning them into centers of biodiversity; Bia Power, a software platform that monitors electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and controls the process to ensure they get the cheapest and cleanest energy; Newe, a technological solution that allows retailers in any industry to offer circular models such as rentals and/or subscriptions of their products from their own channels and Moa Foodtech, which promotes the circular economy by combining biotechnology and artificial intelligence to convert waste and byproducts of the agri-food industry into a nutritional product with high added value.
On the last two days of the event, the startups invited were those with an ICT profile in which the entity has most recently invested, and whose common objective is to simplify our relationship with technologies at work and leisure: Kimera Technologies, with a software pioneer that, through artificial intelligence, transforms images and videos into useful data; Remuner, a cloud sales commission platform that helps align company and employee goals by automating variable commission plans; Qbeast, focused on Big Data analysis in the cloud, drastically reducing the time and cost of obtaining knowledge in large data collections; toddl.co, which has created the first SaaS platform in Europe to connect families and organizers of children's activities; and Saigu Cosmetics, with an exclusive line of beauty products made with natural ingredients with minimal environmental impact and transparent management.
Obtaining financial resources to launch or grow your project is a priority for the vast majority of startups. The preferred option is usually Venture Capital, partly due to lack of knowledge of other possibilities. To present the three avenues of private financing for startups (banking, equity investment and Venture Debt), BStartup offered a session in which Ángel Buigues, BStartup segment director, participated; Laurent Arens, director of BStartup10, Anna Niubó, investment manager of Sabadell Venture Capital, Lluís Vidal, CEO of Exoticca, and Jaime Medina, CEO of Startup CFO, who served as moderator.
In this panel, the speakers agreed in recommending entrepreneurs to be resilient and ensure that their partners are like-minded and trustworthy. They also encouraged startups, even those in an initial phase, to seek support and advice from financial entities in order to build a relationship necessary for other phases of their project.
Other sessions of great interest that took place this week at the BStartup stand were dedicated to different perspectives of the current moment of investment, led by eight high-level women investors, representatives of large corporations, Venture Builders, Family Offices and accelerators and the reflections of Juanjo Rodríguez, Seed Rocket mentor, on the growth of a startup. In addition, key actors from the entrepreneurial ecosystem throughout Spain disseminated their content, such as the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, Basque Tek Ventures, Andalucía Emprende, CEEI Asturias, Lanzadera and Startup Valencia or Barcelona Global, among others.
