Investment in Catalan start-ups up 266% to 264 million euros in 2015

• • Catalonia takes 50% of all investment in Spain
• • 44 foreign investors have participated in the various rounds of funding

The Catalan start-up sector, spearheaded by Barcelona, is consolidating its position as the leader in the sector in Spain, taking nearly 50% of all investment. In 2015, a new record was set for investment in Catalonia, which hit264 million euros, up 266% from the previous year.

Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCB) recently published a report on digital start-ups in Barcelona, which concludes that the sectors where the most resources were invested were e-commerce, e-finance and e-government, meaning technology services for public administrations. The report highlights that most of the investment went to more consolidated, later-stage start-ups and that a total of 44 foreign investors had participated in the various rounds of funding.

According to this report, the list of start-ups with the greatest investment in 2015 was headed up by LetGo,a company that sells second-hand products (92 million), followed by Wallapop, an app to sell second-hand items (40 million), and UserZoom, a platform to measure website usability (30 million).

Finally, the Mobile World Capital Barcelona report highlights that, in Spain as a whole, start-ups attracted 535 million euros in investment in 2015. After Catalonia, which took 49.34% of the total, came Madrid (30.8%) and Valencia (3.7%).