To a sector in one of its sweetest moments, a congress that is preparing to resume the vigor it had before the pandemic. The Catalan entrepreneurial fabric has never raised as much money in financing operations as in 2021. In fact, European start-ups have never experienced such a favorable moment in terms of investment rounds and the money raised with them. It is not surprising, then, that the fair that brings together emerging technology companies within the Mobile World Congress be that there is room for optimism. “It is clearly a recovery edition”, affirms the general director of this event, the 4 Years From Now (4YFN), Pere Duran. “We’re very optimistic,” he adds.
This room, essentially designed for entrepreneurs, starts this Monday inside Mobile (before covid there were 3 kilometers between one event and another) and with figures that are effectively reminiscent of those of then. The organization ensures that this year around 600 start-ups are exhibiting at 4YFN, a figure that means recovering almost 80% of the 2019 offer (regarding 760) and exceeding last year’s panorama by 50%. In addition, almost half will be companies from outside Spain, a proportion that is also close to 60% of international exhibitors that they captured in the last edition before the pandemic, and all in a somewhat larger pavilion even than the one then.
Also, by sharing space with the main congress, the potential for visits is even greater. In the 2019 edition, the 4YFN attracted 23,000 visitors; In the canceled congress of 2020, they expected regarding 25,000, and this year, Mobile as a whole estimates that some 60,000 people will pass through its spaces.
“The ecosystem is delighted to be so close to large companies, because it generates business opportunities for them that in Montjuic [donde se celebraba habitualmente el 4YFN] they were very complicated”, affirms Durán. In this line, for the general director of the event, the main objective is that during the congress a lot of business is done, and, as he sees it, the panorama more than invites it. First, because of the physical proximity to large companies; second, because their thirst for innovation through start-ups is enormous; third, because investment groups with portfolios of 17,000 million euros in total are expected to attend the event.
good financial time
In general, Durán contextualizes, “there are many financial resources available and that means it is a good time to start and to take out digital projects”. To this, this spokesman adds that many changes in consumer behavior come together. “And when there is change, there are opportunities”, he concludes.
In this sense, the 4YFN also works as a thermometer to measure the areas with the most movement. This year, 20% of the participating companies operate in the ‘software as a service‘ (computer systems under subscription); 18%, in health; 15%, in mobility and solutions designed for smart cities; and around another 15%, in education, one of the big bets this year. The other novelty of this edition will be the protagonism that will take on sport, an area to which this show for start-ups will dedicate all the conferences on the last day of the congress.
Related news
“We have always been very strong in ‘business-to-business’ start-ups [soluciones para negocios]but what we have been seeing for years now and which will be the big trend this year is the digitalization of vertical industries and how connectivity is changing these industries, generating new business models,” says Durán.
The other great strength of the 2022 version of the event, according to this person in charge, will be its international presence. “It’s the big difference from any other tech startup event in the state,” he says. The most symptomatic example is the return of Japanese start-ups: the government agency that presents them was one of the casualties of the show held extraordinarily in the summer of last year due to the havoc that the covid was still causing at this point.
