4Y4N 2024
From 26th to 29th February during the MWC more than 780 startups, 85,500 attendees, 1000 investors and venture capitals and 39 countries presented their startups with 41 B of represented funds.
The Mobile World Congress (MWC), is one of the most important technological congress in the world, after CES. At Fira de Barcelona with 101.000 attendees, a figure already close to the pre-pandemic editions, and artificial intelligence (AI) as the main protagonist, followed by advances in 5G and 6G technology.
The Congress doesn’t have all the World's key participants but can join together industries from East and West in the neutral Europe space.
Barcelona is called the Mobile World Capital Barcelona and his claim is Humanising Technology. Believing that technological innovation is a catalyst for social transformation when it is oriented towards the common good. Humanising Technology is a call to use technology in a humanistic way, recognizing not only its capacity to innovate, transform and increase competitiveness but also as a tool to build an inclusive, equitable and sustainable future.
A digital revolution with purpose, where technology will help us solve unanswered problems and generate community and knowledge. MWCapital’s board of trustees is made up of the Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Fira de Barcelona, GSMA, Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange, DAMM and CaixaBank. Till 2030, GSMA will be held in Barcelona as the contract, after the interests of other cities like Madrid. Barcelona, with its vibrant energy and culture, is the perfect setting to capitalize on this momentum.
At the SK Telecom pavilion at Hall number 3, we could find Hu.ma.ne, an innovative technology that feels familiar, natural, and human. Founded by two ex-apple workers Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno.
The main public attractions of Huawei were the FreeClip products, presented by his designer David Smith.
After were interested in the AI functionalities for Android outside the hall, with Gemini and the Circle to search, something that Samsung also announced at their stand al hall 3. The Samsung stands with the Galaxy Ring. The Galaxy ring has to control exercise and health, as it provides innovative functionalities with the integration of Samsung AI. It has sensors to, among other capabilities, monitor heart rate, blood pressure, exercise levels and characteristics, and sleep quality.
After we can’t miss the shapes of Honor with Porche Design.
Very interesting the stands of IBM WatsonX, Telefonica, the Mossos d’Esquadra and the Catalan pavilion.
A software developed entirely by the Mossos d’Esquadra, with the collaboration of the iThinkUPC, which creates robot portraits based on the use of generative AI based on the description it makes of the ‘author the victim of a crime. This tool makes it easier for the victim to provide details and nuances of the description and allows a faithful portrait of the victim’s description to be created gradually without the need for a draftsman. It also allows you to generate a robot portrait from a sketch done manually.
The Alef Aeronautics flying car will be $300.000 expected price.
This edition of the 4YFN is celebrating: 10 years of powering startups.
The digital entrepreneur is only seen at events like 4Y4N (700–4000$ February), EMerge Americas (525–1700 $, April), South Summit (799–5300$ March, June), Web Summit (950 $, November) and Slush (395 $ , November).
A meeting that takes place in parallel to the MWC and that has its own pavilion numbers 8.0 and 8.1 at Fira de Barcelona.
The 4YFN Awards is a global startup competition aimed at finding the best digital startups around the globe. This is the highest official recognition offered exclusively to startups during MWC & 4YFN Barcelona.
A Remote evaluation panel formed by Lourdes Alvarez de Toledo (JME Ventures), Marta Antúnez (Director Wayra Barcelona), Paloma Cabello (Partner Calligram, Business Angel, Former Global Advisory Board MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Enterprise Forum), Fernando Casado Cañeque (Co-Founder & General Partner Inclimo Climate Tech Venture Fund), Paloma Castellano (Director Wayra Madrid), Artem Chestnov (General partner 4Blocks Capital Partners), Juan Felipe Gonzalez (General Partner Hidalgo Venture Capital), Francisco Ferreira Pinto (Partner Bynd Venture Capital), Yahel Halamish (Head of Investor Relation Nina Capital), Andy Lürling (Founding Partner LUMO Labs), Roberto Magnifico (Partner & Board Member LVenture Group), Fritz Oidtmann (Managing Partner at Acton Capital Partners), Fariba Rezvani (Co-Founder/President Dadata Capital), Adrià Roca Valls
(Investment Manager Inveready Asset Management SGEIC) and Dirk Seewald (Partner eCAPITAL).
Five finalists have been selected following criteria such as innovation, scalability, and impact:
– Ocean Ecoestructures: Providing solutions to restore marine life, helping to offset the impact of human activities.
– Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech: brings practical applications of quantum computing to the market in a shorter timeframe.
– Bitsensing: an imaging radar technology company committed to building safer smart cities and elevating connected living.
– Mica AI Medical: AI decision support system that helps radiologists
perform precise and effective mammography analysis
– Whispp: Assistive Voice Technology for people with a voice disability and people who stutter severely
Not in the top but very interesting ideas:
– Yeo, Privacy. Security and Control to get a message.
– Charge Spot, the first global shared power bank rental service.
– Rapidata, Human intelligence and sentiment from specific regions within minutes, to process huge amounts of data.
Under Telefónica Open Innovation (Wayra) we could find diferent established FinTech solutions like GrabrFi, Depasify, Uelz, Devengo and Bankuish.
– Airalo, a company that offers an e-sims solution for travellers with prepaid voice and data plans from the country of origin, invested by Wayra.
The startups of the Pavelló Catalonia d’ACCIÓ at 4YFN 2024 with 5 selected startups and sixteen each couple of days.
– Improfit: has developed a B2B solution that digitizes the operations of doctors and therapists and enables planning, execution and monitoring of patient rehabilitation processes.
– Insects: biotechnology dedicated to the research and production of insects as a sustainable alternative protein source, automating and making processes efficient through software, AI and robotics.
– Neatsight: platform designed for the creation, deployment and monitoring of computer vision solutions adapted to IoT devices.
– The Blue Box: They have developed a low-cost, radiation-free and painless device that detects breast cancer using urine.
– Vaive Logistics: helps companies optimize their operations by offering a new delivery service through the use of robotic technology.
I explain some:
– Boomerang: A system of reusable containers for takeaway food and drinks.
– Escandalo App: Discover, organize and tag the best restaurants based on your friends’ recommendations.
– Quallakids: The app that is revolutionizing the collection of minors. With a single click, Qualla turns the entry and exit of school and extracurricular centers into a quick and secure process.
– BikeOn: The first safety solution for cyclists who can share their location in real time to reduce accidents and improve mobility.
– Footprint mapa: Driving sustainable transformations in the automotive sector, component by component, through high-tech solutions surpassing Net Positive.
–InfluApp: offers an alternative to payment systems, transforming the interaction between brands and companies with customers by rewarding loyalty in the digital environment.
– Opground: AI-based system where hundreds of companies interview tech talent at the same time through a single conversation.
– Hello.App: The world’s first app that pays you money in exchange for using your phone’s local storage space. Had raised an investment round of 170,000 euros, which it complemented with an Enisa of 130,000. In the long term, the platform wants to be a unicorn and reach a value of one billion euros in the next 3 years. Founded by Pintado, that has acquired the hello.app domain for a value of €107,000.
BStartup connect with 15 verticals of Health, Oxolife, Nanobots Therapeutics, Time is brain, Able Human Motion and SYCAI Medical, Environmental Sustainability: Bia Power, Improfit IA, NEWE, Moa Foodtech and Ocean Ecostructures, and ICT: Toddl, Saigu Cosmetics, Kimera Technologies, QBeast and Remuner.
The Catalonia Health Innovation Ecosystem at 4YFN was formed by different projects and iniciatives like the Biel Glasses; Smart glasses for people with low vision. A program to help predict strokes: Methinks and cancer even before the first symptoms appear: Flomics Biotech, From Assistive solutions to Personalized system to identify and translate baby cries to detect pathologies and abnormal behavior: Zoundream
– Catalan Arts showcased start-ups from the music tech, museums/art sectors, Web3, art education and gaming:
Coeli Platform: Acollections software for artworks, software for museums, art galleries and archives.
Unison: The new model for the management of copyrights for the music industry
Meloom: A place to learn to play an instrument with an online course tailored to you.
WindowSight: The first app to stream unlimited visual art and photography of worldwide artists that transforms spaces enhancing everyone’s daily lives
Many thanks to Innoarea Studios and ACCIO for making it possible. More information about last year's main spots of the 4Y4N 2023 Event.
