BME and Barcelona Tech City join to create a financial hub in the Barcelona Stock Exchange

• BME joins Barcelona Tech City as a Global Partner
• The agreement reinforces the campus project with the creation of a Pier specialising in the fintech sector in the Barcelona Stock Exchange building
• The alliance aims to facilitate access by startups to the resources of the capital markets

BME has joined Barcelona Tech City as a Global Partner. The alliance reinforces Barcelona Tech City's commitment to the fintech sector through BME, which is one of the main financial players in the Spanish and European market, thereby showing its support for the sector’s innovative network.

The agreement includes the creation of Barcelona’s new technological and financial hub. The new Hub Fintech of Barcelona Tech City will initially occupy some 1,000 square meters in addition to communal space in the Passeig de Gràcia 19 building and will become Urban Tech Campus’s Pier 05.

The Hub Fintech will offer its facilities to host companies, entrepreneurs and investors linked to the financial and technology sector. It will be a working space for startups, investors, venture capital, traditional banking and insurance companies. The aim is to create an optimal environment to make the sector more dynamic and create synergies throughout its value chain.

The Hub also aims to provide startups with access to the different resources of the capital markets and thus consolidate their growth. BME will make its knowledge and experience available to companies in order to help them grow through its market infrastructures, such as the Stock Exchange, its SME Growth Market MAB or its Pre-Market Environment.

Due to the Covid-19 health crisis, the incorporation of the new space to the Urban Tech Campus is expected to be activated in 2021.

Javier Hernani, CEO of BME, stated: "this alliance allows BME to be closer to companies deeply-rootedin trends and disruptive value-added services. This reality broadens BME's options to increase the number of companies in its markets, participate in technological solutions useful for its business purposes and evaluate technologies that can be incorporated into its range of services. It perfectly complements our Pre-Market Environment initiative for startups. BME supports Barcelona to become a leading innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem worldwide. This is an initiative that is perfectly aligned with the innovative projects and technology hubs of the SIX group, of which we are now part". 

For Barcelona Tech City, having BME as a Global Partner is an important step to consolidate a fintech sector of reference and provide all companies in the ecosystem with access to better sources of financing. The President of Barcelona Tech City, Miguel Vicente, states that "the agreement with BME offers us the opportunity to explore new financing alternatives for our startups. The Pre-Market Environment and the MAB are growth opportunities to be considered for the ecosystem companies". Miquel Martí, CEO of the association, adds that "Pier 05 is an important step in the consolidation of the association's Urban Tech Campus project. The collaboration with BME will allow us to work on training aspects that complement the city’s current offering".

To this end, Barcelona Tech City will make available to the ecosystem’s companies and startups tools to improve the financial culture necessary to access funding from capital markets. At the same time, it will facilitate interaction with agents of potential interest to BME within the scope of the association's members.

About BME

BME is the operator of all the stock markets and financial systems in our country and is part of the SIX Group. From its beginnings, BME has been a reference in the sector both in terms of solvency and in terms of efficiency and profitability. BME offers a wide range of products, services and trading systems based on its own stable and advanced technology. Also, access to global markets for issuers, intermediaries and investors both in Spain and internationally, with clients in Europe, America and Africa.  One of the strengths of our company is based on its diversification, which is reflected in its organization around seven business areas that offer a wide variety of services at the highest level. The areas are: Equity, Fixed Income, Derivatives, Clearing, Settlement, Market Data and Value Added Services.

About Barcelona Tech City

Barcelona Tech City is a private non-profit association that represents more than 1,000 companies from the digital and technological sectors based in Barcelona, collaborating with the different agents that make up Barcelona's entrepreneurial ecosystem: entrepreneurs, startups, SMEs, corporations, etc.