Healthcare Barcelona Investment Forum: a springboard for healthcare startups that has raised €186 million

Once again this year, Biocat has collaborated with the Barcelona Medical Association, Barcelona Activa and Esade BAN to organize the 28th Healthcare Barcelona Investment Forum, held online on 24 March due to the pandemic. 

Since its first edition in 2010, this meeting for the Catalan biomedical ecosystem has been a springboard for 250 healthcare startups. The companies that have exhibited their projects at the Forum have raised a total of €186 million, as Nadia Pons, director of the Barcelona Medical Association Health Entrepreneurship Program, announced at this year's event.

When it was his turn, Biocat CEO Jordi Naval gave a rousing speech based on the latest figures on investment raised by emerging companies in the Catalan ecosystem from December 2020: €226 million, nearly double last year, published in the latest update of the BioRegion Report. 

“Barcelona is one of the main healthcare innovation hubs in Europe and the city is more and more open to the world every day. These figures bolster our belief in the ecosystem's potential to scale up to the level of other European countries,” he noted, while also highlighting the significant increase in international investors last year. 

The six companies from the sector participating in the Forum this year are proof of this quality found in the life sciences and healthcare ecosystem in Catalonia:  Nanoligent, SUCCIPRO, WOMENUP, Affirma Biotech, Doppli Connect and Aortyx. The entrepreneurs presented their biotechnology and medical device projects in a round of seven-minute pitches in an attempt to raise investment to further develop the projects. 

The presentations by the startups from this year's event are available on the Barcelona Medical Association (COMB) YouTube channel, as well as those from the other forums held since 2015.