Top tech companies in Barcelona

Known for its sporting excellence and stunning architecture, Barcelona is also one of Europe’s most technologically advanced cities. An entire district is dedicated to supporting tech development (22@), so it’s no surprise that the city is home to six unicorns – with 15 others predicted to join in the coming years.

In addition, a city-wide Internet of Things network connects street lights, public fountains, and park irrigation (to name a few), saving millions of euros that are then actively reinvested in the IoT industry.

As a truly smart city, it’s easy to see why there’s so much buzz as a tech company in Barcelona. So, who should you pay attention to? Here is our pick of eight top tech companies in Barcelona.

Note: Barcelona was one of the cities we ranked as part of our analysis of the best cities in the European Union for tech workers.

RemyRobotics

RemyRobotics produces robots to support the food delivery industry (think Deliveroo, Uber Eats). Its goal isn’t to replace chefs with machines, but to complement their work, using sensors and machine learning to cook “algorithmically”. One of the system’s draws is its M2M (machine to machine) network, which allows every smart appliance to coordinate as it cooks. That takes care of inventory management, too.

RemyRobotics claims it can deploy “plug & play kitchens in just 48 hours”, adding the promise that its customers can “have a more sustainable business with healthy margins, great customer satisfaction and unparalleled scalability”. As of 2022, RemyRobotics has sold over 60,000 robot-cooked dishes. It has now launched three robot kitchens.

Citibeats

Citibeats uses natural language processing and machine learning to gather and process social data to understand public opinion trends. It then provides companies and organisations with the knowledge to inform new projects and decisions. As it says, to “bring humanity back into decision-making”.

Its system incorporates traditionally under-represented voices, to provide a less biased and more encompassing summary of public opinion.

In 2022, Citibeats won the Technology Pioneer award at the World Economic Forum. It is also recognised by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations as a platform for social good.

Samoby

Samoby develops security software that monitors performance, security and network issues on employees’ mobile devices. When working from home became more common, troubleshooting security and performance problems also became more difficult to manage. This is what Samoby aims to tackle, providing an open API for employers to record historical data on mobile use, reducing the workload required to resolve issues.

Holded

To run a business, you must coordinate a variety of services and processes every month. Think invoices, inventory and project oversight. Holded wants to put that responsibility into one program. It developed cloud-based ERP (enterprise resource planning) software, providing a platform to oversee the key aspects of your business. It’s specifically targeted at small businesses, who often rely on just one or two individuals to manage all these processes.

In 2021, Holded was acquired by Visma, an IT and business software consultancy company based in Oslo, Norway.

Amenitiz

Amenitiz provides hotel management software designed to streamline the plethora of back-end operations. It supports independent hotel/hospitality owners by providing a one-stop service to deal with reservations, payments, property management and general admin. As of 2023, it supports over 8,000 hotels, and has raised more than $30 million in funding.

Hubtype

Next in our list of Tech Companies in Barcelona is Hubtype which develops simple, AI-powered chatbot interfaces for customer service. It wants to reduce the friction between users and troubleshooting; essentially providing a self-customer-service. Its primary solution is the simplification of UX, incorporating dynamic in-chat elements and a conversational tone that keeps the user engaged. Hubtype claims an 80% increase in engagement compared to standard text-based chatbots.  

thethings.io

Taking advantage of the huge IoT network of Barcelona, thethings.io support the development of IoT based startups and independent projects. It offers a platform to manage your things, with security and protocols already built in. One of its main aims is to make the process as intuitive as possible, to ensure new developers can focus more effort on their own projects.

Deep Detection

Deep Detection combines x-ray technology with artificial intelligence to create “x-ray cameras”. These then detect foreign materials in products before they’re shipped. Its software “Photon AI” employs a machine learning model to process the x-ray output and detect unexpected materials. Deep Detection wants to streamline the process of quality control and product safety, preventing accidents that cost companies millions.

To date, Deep Detection has secured over €1 million in funding. In 2021, it was awarded the Innovative SME seal by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain.

Other cities we’ve covered

We love highlighting great work that tech companies are doing no matter where they’re based. Did you know that there’s a tech company in Cork, Ireland, that claims it has “created the world’s first end-to-end platform for solving business problems”? Or that Reading is one of the strongest tech hubs in the UK? What about Brisbane, Australia which hosts an internationally recognised text analysis software company for academics and researchers? Those are just some of the locations we’ve covered here at TechFinitive! If you’d like to see your home city featured, get in touch, and we will see what we can do!