• The event organized by the Tech Barcelona association is approaching 4,000 attendees, who have filled the spaces of La Llotja de Mar for two days.

• This fifth edition, “the most technological”, has had a total of 150 speakers, including more than 50 entrepreneurs and 30 national and international investors, as well as representatives of corporations and experts in technology, especially deeptech.

• Yplasma, a startup that develops plasma actuators to improve thermal management, has won the Catalan Pitch Competition, organized by ACCIÓ, becoming the ‘Startup Catalana de l’Any’.

Barcelona, December 12,  2024. –Tech Spirit Barcelona, the event of reference for the technological and digital ecosystem of Barcelona, successfully culminates its fifth edition after registering nearly 4,000 attendees at La Llotja de Mar. The event promoted by Tech Barcelona, the private non-profit association that brings together entrepreneurs, investors, corporations and institutions, has reaffirmed itself as a key meeting for the innovative landscape of the city.

In this fifth edition, the event has stood out for its focus on disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing or microchip design, in an increasingly international environment. In total, 150 national and international speakers participated, including more than 50 entrepreneurs and 30 investors, along with technology experts and representatives of leading innovation companies. For the first time, more than half of the sessions were conducted in English, reflecting the growing international projection of Barcelona as a global technology hub.

“We have had great entrepreneurs, investors and corporations, in a demonstration of why Barcelona is a technological hub of reference worldwide,” said Miguel Vicente, president of Tech Barcelona, thanking the support of public institutions and partners that have made possible this event with more than 1,800 minutes of top-level content and opportunities for connection and networking. “We will continue working along the lines of this fifth edition, the most technological to date,” added the president of the association in view of the relevance of the technology-based projects developed in Barcelona.

On the second day of Tech Spirit Barcelona 2024, artificial intelligence took center stage once again. “We are still in the early stages of generative AI,” said Eduardo Ordax, Generative AI Lead at Amazon Web Services, who stressed that ”the big challenge today for companies is to integrate these models into their operations.” According to the expert, this process requires “developing the platform that supports them, the cloud”. After his speech, Ricard Torras, from Google Cloud, took the stage together with Nuclia AI, Piper AI and Nexus Clips, three startups that have built their businesses based, from the beginning, on artificial intelligence.

Other participants included Openchip, the company that will design chips ‘made in Barcelona’; Sateliot, the startup that launches nanosatellites into space together with SpaceX; and Submer, which recently raised 55 million euros to continue developing its technology to build sustainable data centers. The day concluded with a live interview with Israel Ruiz, president of Engine Ventures and former vice president of MIT, the most important technological institute in the world.

Yplasma, Startup Catalana de l’Any

The startup Yplasma has been recognized as the ‘Catalan Startup of the Year’, after winning ACCIÓ’s Catalan Pitch Competition. The startup develops plasma actuators to improve everything from the thermal management of electronic devices to the aerodynamics of aircraft wings. The executive director of ACCIÓ, Joan Romero, highlighted “the quality of the 24 projects and the presentations, which improves year after year”. For Romero, “the goal is to have 3,000 startups in Catalonia by 2030, but above all that they should be technologically differential because they are a fundamental axis to build the society of the future”.

Throughout the two days, ACCIÓ also organized more than 600 meetings between investors and entrepreneurs with the aim of boosting their search for funding.