Esade Alumni, in conjunction with Banco Sabadell and the European Union-funded Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan, and NextGenerationEU funds, made Startup Day a benchmark event for Spain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Esade Alumni's Startup Day is much more than just an event. It is a movement that promotes innovation and economic growth by gathering the leading stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This year, its expansion to five cities reflects the increasing importance of entrepreneurship in Spain. This event has gained a foothold as an essential platform for connecting entrepreneurs with investors, fostering collaboration among stakeholders in the ecosystem (entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, and academia all shared knowledge and experiences), and inspiring new generations of entrepreneurs with testimonials of success.
The edition in Barcelona, the site of the first editions of Startup Day, was the epicenter of this event and offered a comprehensive picture of today’s entrepreneurial scene. The day began with a Matins Esade with Alister Moreno, the founder and CEO of Clikalia, moderated by Jordi Fabregat (Lic&MBA 75), director of the Executive Master’s in Finances. That gave way to the Esade Alumni and Banco Sabadell 2024 Best Startup Award ceremony, which went to Apartool, a corporate temporary housing management platform whose purpose is to digitalize the corporate housing industry.
This project, originally developed in Esade classrooms, received investment from Esade BAN, Esade Alumni’s business angels network. Since graduating, Marc Vilar (BBA 15), co-founder and CEO of Apartool, has kept up his ties with eWorks, the Esade Entrepreneurship Institute’s business creation program. “Apartool has always been closely associated with Esade. My graduating project at Esade was the business plan of Apartool, and after that, we benefitted from Alumni Entrepreneurship’s mentoring, a first round of financing in Esade BAN… and in our expansion in Dubai, the alumni community in the United Arab Emirates have also helped us. One of our maxims is learning, growing, and enjoying ourselves along the way. Our thanks to Esade for standing by us along the way and creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Barcelona that is a leader in Europe,” Vilar said when receiving the award from Carlos Ventura (Lic&MBA 91), Director General of Banca Comercial, Banca Empresas, and Red Banco Sabadell.
Next, the round table “Be an Entrepreneur and Invest in the Luxury Sector” analyzed growth strategies in this sector. It featured Humbert Sasplugas (Lic&MBA 10), co-founder and CEO of PDPaola; Joan Roca, founder and CEO of Essentialits, and Montse Suárez (Lic&MBA 02), founder and managing partner of Iris Ventures, with Egle Toia, academic co-director of Esade’s “Luxury Management” program, as the moderator.
“In the luxury sector, the brand value is essential; it requires time, patience, and resources. The functional value of a luxury good or service is taken for granted,” the participants in the round table concurred. “The key to luxury brands is telling authentic stories. It is essential to understand the story behind the company and for this story to be conveyed to customers,” said Montse Suárez. Egle Toia added that “the artist’s vision is an essential part in luxury. When somebody purchases a Chanel product, they are also buying the story of Coco Chanel; the same holds true with Ferrari and other iconic brands.” Regarding growth and scalability strategy in the luxury sector, Humbert Sasplugas stressed that “the inherent contradiction in the sector is managing accessibility to prevent the product from becoming massive.” He also highlighted being a “fan of real economy and brand creation projects, because brands are the future. But creating value takes time and perseverance, and scalability is complicated. It is difficult to position a company in luxury without the heritage component, a story, and a history.” Joan Roca, in turn, also underscored the importance of “hyper-personalization” and detailed knowledge of the customer as the cornerstones of success in this market. “We believe scalability is based on technology, because we need to hyper-personalize proposals very quickly, and to do this we need technology. But it’s always behind-the-scenes because the customer service is still personal and trust-based.”
The Esade Alumni and Banco Sabadell 2024 Best Startup Award went to Apartool, a corporate temporary housing management platform whose purpose is to digitalize the corporate housing industry
The second round table, entitled “Conversations with Leaders of Scale-ups,” analyzed the best time to scale up a company. Francesc Font (PDP 07), co-founder and co-CEO of Incapto Coffee, shared how “customer feedback” was the key to identifying the right time to grow: “The catalyst was being very good at telling what we did.” Isaac Sayol, the co-founder and CPO of Innovamat, stressed the importance of in-depth knowledge of the field—mathematics—as an engine of his company’s growth. Finally Eusebi Llensa, the co-founder the CEO of Outvise, added that “over time you discover your own dynamics, which helps with the scalability.” The moderator of the round table, Yolanda Pérez, director of BStartup and the Banco Sabadell Business Hub, noted that “in order to grow you have to know how to manage teams, generate scalable sales processes, and retain talent, among others.”
During the day, there was also time to talk about artificial intelligence with Genís Roca (MBA 02), an AI expert, who invited the audience to reconsider business strategies. While businesses tend to plan four to five years out, Roca argued that the true digital transformation requires a 25-year vision. After the Internet revolution and the inclusion of citizen information, we are entering a new age driven by sensor-generated data. This avalanche of information, which will take at least 20 years to consolidate, will require artificial intelligence as an essential tool. Roca imagined a future of proactive, hyper-personalized, real-time services in which AI becomes the database of all applications. Trust in data will be crucial for the emergence of new intermediaries capable of offering highly personalized services on a large scale.
This year, the Climate Change and Energy Transition Investment Forum was held to cap off Barcelona’s Startup Day. It was an outstanding opportunity to explore innovative, sustainable projects and connect to investors committed to the energy transition and the struggle against climate change. Before the forum, there was a lecture on “Recycled Textiles. Is the Textile Sector Ready for the Challenge?” with Miguel Hernández, director general of the Instituto Cerdà, and Albert Alberich, director of the Moda RE Project of Cáritas España, which has become one of the leading used clothing collectors in Spain.
Fernando Zallo (Lic&MBA 83), director of Esade BAN, moderated the Investment Forum in which projects like Escena 4.0, with its solar geodesic dome, and Pack2Earth, with its biodegradable materials, presented innovative solutions to lower our carbon footprint. Kleta and Voilà, in turn, offered sustainable alternatives in the fields of mobility and food, respectively. Footprint Mappa, a tech platform, rounded out the scene by providing tools to measure and lower businesses’ climate impact.
Finally, Juan Manuel Garrido, the director of operations at ENISA, presented the public company devoted to funding the viable, innovative business projects of Spanish SME’s. He said that ENISA funding is perfect for innovative startups and SME’s, and it is totally complementary to bank financing. These are the first options entrepreneurs turn to when financing their companies in the initial stages and making their projects grow. During the day, there was also time for the elevator pitches of the startups that are founded by Esade Alumi, namely True Cold, Futurechromes, Conus Airway, Payli, Nema Health, and Happy Sneeze.
The capital of Spain hosted an edition of Startup Day with a clear focus on venture capital. The Investment Forum organized by Esade BAN was a unique chance for promising startups (like GNC Group, Guayule, GumsUp, Lernmi, Opgroung, and Skor) to present their projects to investors. Plus, the round table on venture capital enabled the audience to learn firsthand about the trends and challenges in this sector, with Aquilino Peña, co-founder and managing partner at Kibo Ventures; Borja Briceño, partner at Nauta Capital; and Mila Valcárcel, founding partner and managing partner at Eatable Ventures.
There was also time for two inspirational talks: one on AI featuring Marc Torrents, professor in the Department of Operations, Innovation, and Data Sciences at Esade, and the other on the energy transition, with Elena Bou, Associate Professor in the Department of Operations Management and Innovation at Esade, co-founder of EIT InnoEnergy , and winner of the first Nobel Prize for sustainability. The last event of the day was the elevator pitches of the startups founded by Esade alumni: Maska, Datos y Personas, and Optident.
Seville has proven to be a hub for entrepreneurship in southern Spain. With the participation of key figures such as Carlos Pérez, co-founder of CoverManager, the technological software for the hospitality industry that manages more than 17,000 clients (12 from The World's 50 Best Restaurants list and over 400 Michelin Stars spread across more than 300 restaurants) in 40 countries, with 7 being its key markets with dedicated teams: Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico; Adrián Ortiz (EMM 16), CEO and Partner of Xtraice, the world leader in the sale of ice skating rinks; and Anabel Fernández, Founder & CEO of Affor Health, a consultancy specializing in psychosocial well-being.
The Girona edition enlisted the participation of the serial entrepreneur, Josep Casas, CEO and co-founder of Food for Joe, a cat and dog food company, and Europistachios, the European leader in pistachio production. First, however, there was a masterclass on corporate entrepreneurship taught by Joan Riera, professor in the Department of Strategy and General Management at Esade, who also interviewed Josep Casas.
Lleida’s entrepreneurs had the opportunity to exchange experiences and knowledge with Esade professor María José de la Maza. Marta Corral, Bruno Vilarasau, and Marco Ibós, founders of Nema Health, Alere Circular, and TALKUAL, respectively, shared their visions and projects in a round table moderated by this Esade expert. The day also started with a masterclass taught by professor De la Maza.
