{"id":1218270,"date":"2022-10-07T12:44:04","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T12:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/10\/07\/the-hottest-startups-in-barcelona\/"},"modified":"2022-10-07T12:44:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T12:44:04","slug":"the-hottest-startups-in-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/10\/07\/the-hottest-startups-in-barcelona\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hottest Startups in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cBarcelona has triumphed<\/span> over Madrid as Spain\u2019s startup capital because of the deal flow and the talent,\u201d explains Miquel Mart\u00ed, Tech Barcelona\u2019s CEO. \u201cInternational talent is attracted by the lifestyle, the strength of the ecosystem, and the presence of international companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Barcelona & Catalonia Startup Hub\u2014the region\u2019s startup directory\u2014there are over 1,900 startups in Catalonia, mostly concentrated in Barcelona; since 2016, the number has grown by over 75 percent. The city has long had a strong tradition of health-tech startups fueled by university and regional government collaboration, but successful founders have been funding, supporting, and starting other companies, as well as diversifying into construction, mobility, and sustainability. There\u2019s also been a slow trickle of fintech companies from London, lured by post-Brexit border-free banking, good weather, a lower cost of living\u2014and the beach.<\/p>\n

\n

011h\u2019s Lucas Carn\u00e9 and Jos\u00e9 Manuel Villanueva.<\/span>Photograph: Gregori Civera<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

011h<\/p>\n

Lucas Carn\u00e9 and Jos\u00e9 Manuel Villanueva sold Barcelona ecommerce site Privalia in 2016. In 2020, they both committed \u20ac2 million (roughly $1.97 million) to found this environmentally friendly \u201cpassive house\u201d startup, raising an additional \u20ac8 million in seed funding and, in July, \u20ac25 million in Series A funding with Redalpine, Aldea Ventures, and A\/O Proptech. 011h builds prefabricated homes in its factory using wood from managed forests to remain carbon neutral. \u201cWe\u2019re bringing the factory systems from automotive to construction to reduce costs and design buildings with low energy requirements,\u201d explains Carn\u00e9. \u201cBuildings are responsible for 40 percent of global CO2<\/sub> emissions.\u201d A project with developer Renta Corporaci\u00f3n reduced embodied carbon of the building by more than 90 percent compared to conventional methods, while construction timelines were reduced by 35 percent. 011h\u2019s Fioresta development in Alicante began construction in July 2022, and the company is developing a digital platform to run the design and building process. Global expansion will follow next year. 011h.com<\/em><\/p>\n

acceXible<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call it maths-based linguistic medicine,\u201d says Carla Zaldua, cofounder and CEO of acceXible. The company\u2019s automated speech analysis captures a patient\u2019s voice\u2014anywhere from the doctor\u2019s office to over a landline\u2014and uses AI to analyze their speech patterns and detect the early signs of dementia, Parkinson\u2019s, and even coronary disease from tone, pauses, repetition, and sentiment analysis via so-called vocal biomarkers. Founded in 2017, acceXible has raised \u20ac1.4 million, supported in the early stages by grants, plus $959,000 in seed funding in 2021. acceXible detects dementia with an accuracy rate of over 91 percent, has a new funding round at the end of 2022, and is expanding internationally. The company is testing the service with the UK National Health Service in rural Cornwall, where it\u2019s hard for older people to reach doctors, and it is prototyping a 60-second voice test to detect the signs of depression and anxiety in Colombia, Spain, the UK, and the US. accexible.com<\/em><\/p>\n

\n