As Spain’s Catalonia pushes toward independence, Barcelona—one of the most-wired cities in the world and longtime host of the largest mobile tech conference worldwide, Mobile World Congress —is ready to become a tech capital.
Miquel Martí, CEO of Barcelona Tech City, organizer of startup incubator Pier 01, makes the usual San Francisco comparisons but with a twist: “We’re also the Miami of Europe, the gateway to the Spanish-speaking world.”
There are 400 million native Spanish speakers globally—more than native Arabic, French-Canadian, and Japanese combined. Pier 01 itself is expected to jump next year from its current 1,000 residents to approximately 2,500, says Martí.
That hustle comes amid the bustle of a $1.5 billion startup scene, driven by Pier 01’s $587 million in investment funding but buoyed by some of the tech sector’s biggest names and most blueblood blue chips—all piled on top of a significantly lower cost of living with a breezy bohemian flavor influenced heavily by native sons Salvador Dalí, Antoni Gaudí, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso. It’s easy to see why Spain is reluctant to say adiós to the Catalan haven and why the world’s tech giants are eager to say hello in any language they can.
Airbnb
Airbnb has a hot-and-cold relationship with the city, which requires Airbnb hosts to have hard-to-obtain tourism licenses. Under the threat of a ban earlier this year, Airbnb recalled 1,043 illegal spots from its database—which jumped from 11,000 in 2014 to 20,000 now—and offered free lodging to survivors of the terrorist attack this summer. But the city is still pushing a $704,000 fine. Barcelona is a tourism jewel as the city’s 1.7 million residents last year saw 8 million foreign visitors—900,000 of whom used Airbnb.
Amazon
This year, the Seattle-headquartered company opened a $35 million airport warehouse devoted to Amazon Fulfillment, its third-party shipping service. It expects to have 1,500 workers by 2020. Amazon amzn also announced this past spring that it intends to add 500 more jobs by 2019 with a seller support hub.
