Accelerator IQS Tech Factory ensures that of the 62 startups it has supported in five years, only four have disappeared
Barcelona is the fifth European hub for startups. Between 2015 and 2019, 326 rounds of financing were closed for a value of 2,748 million euros. The Catalan ecosystem has more than 1,500 emerging companies and has experienced a growth of 38.5% in four years. Likewise, 43% of startups have e-commerce and the marketplace as a business model.
However, not all startups are digital. In Spain, in general, and in Catalonia, in particular, there are industrial startups that hope with their prototypes to improve various sectors. According to the accelerator IQS Tech Factory, nationwide there may be more than 300 industrial startups. And their survival rate is much higher than that of digital ones.
Differences
The CEO of IQS Tech Factory, Oriol Pascual, assures Crónica Global that the accelerator has supported some 62 startups in five years and that only four have disappeared. “Industrial startups have a higher survival rate than digital ones. There are more barriers to entering the ecosystem, but when it is achieved, these startups go for it. Also, when something is tangible it is easier to see if it works or not. “, Add.
An industrial start-up is, in Pascual’s words, a new scientific-technical based company that involves some type of production process. “Their products are physical and their dynamics are different,” he details. Thus, an industrial start-up requires longer development times, if compared to a digital one, it needs more capital because it has to make prototypes, test them …; and is subject to regulatory issues to put the product on the market. “It costs an industrial start-up much more than a digital one to get financing,” Pascual underlines.
More supports
Although in a first phase these startups can obtain public financing, once they are immersed in the industrialization process, that is, once the prototype is made and 5,000 more units have to be created, “there is no longer a public or private vehicle that finance this, “laments Pascual. And despite this, these startups survive and do not die along the way.
For this reason, the IQS Tech Factory incubator tries to bring this type of start-ups closer to local manufacturers – some 7,000 – thanks to an agreement that it maintains with eight municipalities of the Vallès, to facilitate the search for component suppliers and take their products to the market.
However, this is not enough. Pascual asks the administrations “to help align the agents and for the State to invest and take shares in companies with a scientific-technical basis.” “We have scientific knowledge, but we must know how to translate it into practical solutions in the market and that is a part that we must also work on,” he concludes.
