The My Start BCN competition, organised by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Barcelona, is a programme aimed at promoting the international growth process of virtuous Italian companies wishing to expand their market in Spain. Now in its sixth year, the 2023 competition is once again organised in collaboration with I3P, the Innovative Companies Incubator of Politecnico di Torino.
The initiative is aimed at all founding partners of Italian citizenship of new companies with an innovative product/service without necessarily being registered in the register of innovative start-ups. From all the applications received, five start-ups will be selected and will have the opportunity to present their project and make a video pitch to be assessed by a jury of professionals, mentors and venture capitalists. At the end of the presentation, one of the start-ups will be declared the overall winner.
The prizes
The young enterprise that is elected the winner of My Start BCN 2023 will receive as a prize:
- access to a free coworking space for 6 months;
- administrative and financial support;
- mentoring aimed at project acceleration;
- networking and contacts with the venture capitalist ecosystem;
- membership of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Barcelona for one year;
- participation in the 4YFN event, held from February 26th to 29th, 2024 in Barcelona.
The evaluation process
The start-ups that are admitted to the competition will then be assessed by a jury composed of expert members from Italy and Spain. The evaluation criteria for the candidate projects will be:
- the level of innovation proposed to the market;
- the competitive advantage demonstrated by the start-up and its potential scalability;
- the attractiveness of the target market and consistency with the product/service offered;
- the quality of the entrepreneurial team;
- the results already achieved by the start-up.
The evaluation process will take place in two phases:
- Phase 1 - Italy: the application evaluation procedure will be coordinated by the Italian Chamber of Commerce - Barcelona in collaboration with I3P.
- Phase 2 - Spain: the evaluation procedure will be coordinated by the Italian Chamber of Commerce - Barcelona and a jury composed of innovation managers, professionals, mentors and venture capitalists.
How to apply
The competition's official webpage contains the initiative's presentation documents and the form that must be filled out and sent, together with the other required materials, to the dedicated email address of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Barcelona via WeTransfer, by the deadline of October 23th, 2023.
For further information and contact, you can write to the email address comunicacion@camaraitaliana.com.
Last year's winners
The award ceremony of the fifth edition of the My Start BCN competition was held on November 29th, 2022 in Barcelona on the occasion of the 'Lighthouse of the Mediterranean' Award.
Of all the applications received, those selected presented their project to a jury composed of Abinsula, Banco Mediolanum, Acciò Trade&Investment, Pimec, NTTData, Barcelona Activa, Barcelona Tech City, Mind The Bridge, Talent Garden, Japan Europe Team Work, Iese Business School, Seed&Click, i2CAT, IED.
The winning start-up of My Start BCN 2022 was AdapTronics, a young innovative company incubated in I3P and part of the ESA BIC Turin incubation program: its representatives Lorenzo Agostini and Camilla Conti collected the award from Alessio Merella, Business Developer of Abinsula Spain, and Igor Garzesi, President of the Italian Chamber of Commerce - Barcelona.