The company of Catalan origin, Bcombinator, was born with the aim of building successful startups and investing in international founders. After just 18 months, it has a portfolio of more than 50 startups valued in the tens of millions. This is due to the reconversion of Bcombinator in the ‘all-in-one’ hub for entrepreneurs: coworking, incubator, accelerator and investment fund.
The success that this accelerator has accumulated, which receives up to 150 startup applications per month to enter its programs, has led it to fight for an ambitious goal for the year 2027: to expand to more than 10 locations in Southern Europe and LATAM, where it can incubate, accelerate and/or invest in more than 300 startups per year. .
According to Sergi Villa, Bcombinator CEO, “Our goal is that, once the startups go through Bcombinator, they come out with a ‘quality seal’ that makes it easier for them to raise investment, attract talent and clients, and quickly scale their business. But at Bcombinator we put profitable business models at the center: businesses that can scale and grow very fast, in such a way that, as they scale, revenue grows much faster than costs. We have seen in the last decade many businesses, like WeWork or Uber, that as they scaled, costs grew at the same rate as income, or even more. We are looking for economies of scale, not creating zero-sum markets.”
Bcombinator was born in Barcelona with the aim of being the main actor from the ideation phase to the product-market fit of the whole of Europe. For this reason, unlike other accelerators, Bcombinator is an “all-in-one” hub for entrepreneurs, ranging from incubation to Venture Capital, going through acceleration or coworking.
As Erik Brieva, president of Bcombinator, clarifies, “We seek to put the entrepreneur at the center. Unlike other accelerators, ours is founded and run by successful entrepreneurs who know the market well”. This makes Bcombinator the only Startups Hands On hub, following “a personalized methodology for each project where new entrepreneurs work hand in hand with other successful entrepreneurs who have already been where they are going to be”.
Recently the company has increased the capital, to give strategic entry to key partners that will allow to start operations, at the end of 2023, in Madrid and the opening of new funds of 20 million, in the second quarter of the year. The legal firm ILV Silver, Venture Capital investors from Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, as well as successful entrepreneurs who have created, internationalized and sold their startup, have entered this capital increase. “The goal is to be the leading startup hub in Spain and Portugal in the short term, and for this we have sought to create a ‘dream team’ for the sector; people who do not add, but multiply”affirms Sergi Vila.
Offering these services has made entrepreneurs in Barcelona prefer to go to Bcombinator over other accelerators, and has led them to be in great demand: today, Bcombinator only accepts 3% of the requests that are submitted to it, which reach 150 per month, growing at a rate of 10-15% per month. According to Jordi Martin, COO, “it has been this wide demand that has led us to look for an expansion that allows more Startups, in more locations, to achieve their objectives”. In this sense, the figures position Bcombinator as one of the most competitive accelerators: more than 50% of the startups that go through Bcombinator close an investment, a figure that is higher than the rest of the sector.
Until now, Bcombinator has a portfolio made up of more than 50 companies, among which are some: Solfy, Tattoox, Flappin’, Emotional or Hippy. Today, Bcombinator increases its portfolio at a rate of 4 new startups per month and all after barely a year and a half on the market.
