Barcelona calling Nordic startups

When the November rain hits against your window in Stockholm or Oulu, and you can barely notice a daylight, you will read this post again and curse : why the f?!* I didn’t apply. I had a week.

On the offer is a winter in Barcelona sun, with a bonus of focusing fully on your startup. Barcelona is surely the rising European startup hub — it is already among the top5 startup towns on the continent and the city is investing heavily, promoting the capital of Catalonia as a hotbed for the new technology.

So, what we are talking about?

The city has teamed up with French innovation network NUMA to launch NUMA Barcelona growth programme, which lasts from November to February, and the 10 teams chosen can use the office also for two more months.

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The teams get 30,000 euros and a good chance to tap into 1.5 million euros of further investments into the top teams of the batch. The investments will be made in startups whose proposals “possess significant international potential in addition to a strong innovative element.”

The expectation from the organisers is that at least CEO and CTO of the startup attend the programme and the team should have a product on the market and some KPIs to measure its traction.

In addition to the capital the 4-month programme gives a great opportunity to build momentum and network. NUMA Barcelona has a solid network of international mentors. They include, among others, Ali Partovi, investor and consultant in projects such as Facebook, Uber, Airbnb or Dropbox; Gary Shainberg, ex-Vice President of Technology and Innovation at British Telecom and one of the first promoters of Tech Pioneers in the World Economic Forum; Jorge Carulla, ex-Marketing Director of eDreams and cofounder of ShakeUp; and Francisco Pérez, cofounder of Hawkers.

With just a week to apply, deadline is September 30, there are applicants from 37 countries in the line.

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“Entrepreneurs from 37 countries, including Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, India, Cameroon, Russia and Canada, among others, want to take part in our initiative. We are offering to accelerate ventures in the mobile capital. This is unique in the world,” said Pep Gómez, Chairman of NUMA Barcelona.

The first NUMA Barcelona programme will culminate in a Demo Day at a startup festival 4YFN 2017. Even though 4YFN is organised during Mobile World Congress, the teams applying do not have to be in the wireless sector. B2B software could be more attractive, organisers say.

While NUMA might be less known in Nordics it has run acceleration programmes in 5 countries (France, Russia, India, Morocco and Mexico) and plans to deploy its model in 15 countries by 2019. So far the 109 startups have gone through NUMA accelerator, raising on average 1 million euros.

Barcelona is calling, apply here.