As on any first birthday it is the parents who enjoy the party the most. Something similar took place on Thursday at Pier01, the centre run by the Barcelona Tech City association in Palau de Mar that brings together under one roof the brightest in Barcelona’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, including more than 100 startups and companies, such as mVentures of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona, Nuclio Venture Builders, BeMobile, CornerJob, Napptilus, Byhours, Geenapp, Ikomobi, Iris, and LetGo.
"We have seen exponential growth thanks to a proposal of value that brings together entrepreneurs, venture capital companies (investors), traditional businesses with online channels that want to be more digital, and finally international companies based in Barcelona, such as Airbnb," argues Miquel Martí, CEO of Barcelona Tech City. Some 365 days since its official inauguration, the summer party on Wednesday evening with some 500 people on the terrace shared by HolaLuz and Tiendeo was a good appetizer before blowing out the first candle.
Miquel Martí: “The large world technology hubs have physical spaces like this; with Pier01 we have shown that the digital world can work perfectly well with the corporate world"
Proud family
A few days after announcing that he is leaving the management of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona, Aleix Valls, called the first anniversary of Pier01 “a complete success from different points of view.” To start with, he values “the local impact for visualising the entrepreneurial Barcelona,” but also the contribution it is making for “internationally visualising this entrepreneurial ecosystem.” And he provided a graphic example: “even though a building is not very digital, it helps the more traditional world to understand the relevance and critical mass of the ecosystem.”
Miquel Martí at Pier01 | Àngel Bravo
In the Pier01 family perhaps Gerard Olivé cannot be considered a parent, but he is at least an uncle. “We arrived in June and took over the whole first floor with BeRepublic, BeAgency and the different companies of Antai Venture Builders,” the cofounder of all these companies tells VIA Empresa. Although the multiple branches of his initiatives are spread around, Pier01 is home to the headquarters of the team Olivé heads. “The work with Miquel Martí carried a lot of weight for Miguel Vicente, my partner, to become the president of the association and myself on the board,” he admits. “We liked being able to give support from the beginning and boost the project,” he says, satisfied.
Aleix Valls: “Although a building is not very digital, it helps the more traditional world to understand the relevance and critical mass of the ecosystem”
A year later, Olivé agrees in calling the daily activity of Pier01 “fantastic”. “There is a very good ecosystem which generates local opportunities.” Obviously, he says “digital is very important, but we are still people. To be able to have a coffee, meet up with someone and go down to a meeting” are clear advantages. “This hub makes things easier and people like coming to work here,” he insists.
The startup culture dominates Pier01 | Àngel Bravo
The kids are getting bigger
As on any birthday, the parents are happy but are also looking forward to seeing how their child will grow up. And growing is what the startups that have occupied Pier01 in its first year are doing. “Two or three of us came to Pier01 on the first day and now there are eight of us,” says the cofounder and CEO of TeamEQ, Francesca Gabetti.
“I spoke to Miquel Martí a year earlier and told him I wanted to go there, and he asked me how many places I needed,” she recalls. Even though the team was only made up of three cofounders and Gabetti, it was the only place for them in Barcelona: “I told him that I had no idea how many of us there would be but that I wanted to be there and, moreover, by his side.”
Gerard Olivé: "The digital world is important, but we are still people and it generates local opportunities"
Also there from the beginning was B-wom, the interactive and personalised application for women’s intimate health, which came to Pier01 in July 2016. “We arrived bit by bit and at first we had cables hanging down, there were no dividers at all,” recalls the cofounder, Helena Torras. “We have grown with Pier01. We took six places even though there were still only four of us at the time and now we have filled them.” In fact, she says between laughs, “if we grow a lot and we have to leave Pier01 I don’t know what we’ll do!”
Both businesswomen value the visibility a space like this offers. “Being a B2B, every week we see how the executives of large corporations want to come to see you instead of you going to their offices,” says Gabetti. “Every day there are a lot of visits from people who come to see Pier01. You have journalists, corporates... A deal flow that if you had to go and look for it it would be far harder to find,” says Torras.
At Pier01 startups and large corporations live side by side | Àngel Bravo
The first tasks
Everyone likes to throw parties for their child, but doing so also means a lot of work. “The idea is very good but it has much more potential than is being taken advantage of at the moment,” insists the CEO of TeamEQ. The businesswoman stresses that “there still needs to be a shared agenda, as if it were a Google Campus.” After a year “of experiment,” she is confident that what can be created is an “agenda of events and interesting points that are shared so that all the startups can take part. So that people stay behind in the evenings and nights because there are events, presentations, etc.”
The other cofounder of B-wom and product head, Marta Ros, agrees. “What is missing from Pier01 is a little more union: joint courses, generating more activity.” And, what’s more, she calls for “a common dining room because lunchtime is fantastic for networking even if you bring a Tupperware from home.” It something that the organisation says will come in 2017.
Francesca Gabetti: "The executives of large corporations want to come to see you here instead of going to their offices”
If the canteen is about to arrive, someone who has just done so this week is Jordi Valls, the product head of Carnovo, the first tool to compare new car offers in Spain. “In the two years I have been away from Barcelona I have noticed a radical difference,” says Valls, who spent this time living in the Balearic Islands as director general of the programme for entrepreneurs Menorca Millennials. This ecosystem, he says, “perhaps existed in part, but what is being done in Pier01 is centralising people in a different way.”
The product head of Carnovo points out that “the thing about Silicon Valley was the density of people, in Barcelona there was a need for a place to raise the density.” This space is Pier01, as Aleix Valls explains, “there were already other places in Europe but Barcelona lacked somewhere for foreign investors to come and perhaps while not finding a place they could call home, at least somewhere with relevant and global entrepreneurial activity and culture.”
The CEO of Barcelona Tech City confirms this: “The large world technology hubs all have a physical space like this. Berlin has the Factory, Boston has the Cambridge Innovation Center... We have shown that at Pier01 the digital world can work perfectly well with the corporate world."
Pier01’s #SummerParty celebrated the first anniversary | Cedida