Javier Calleja Arregui

The future of global startups might just be built from Barcelona. When we started Galdana Ventures more than ten years ago, the vision was clear: invest in the best VC firms in the world to access the best startups globally. Venture capital has a powerful flywheel - the best founders attract the best funds, the best funds reinforce their brand, and that brand keeps attracting the next generation of exceptional founders. That is why we focused on building access and trust with firms like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Creandum and other global tier-1 managers. For years, being in those rooms gave me a privileged view of what the best founders looked like before everyone knew their names. Yet rarely did these firms invest in Spain. As a business angel, I often tried to introduce founders I believed in. Spain was seen as talented — but without global recognition. That's why yesterday morning felt meaningful. We hosted a breakfast at our Barcelona office, and for the first time I felt something structural might be changing. I share this vision about Barcelona with my friends at Masia VC, who co-invest in most of these deals - huge thanks to Pepe for helping organize it. Around the table was a group of founders that, until recently, would have been unusual to see together here. A generation - some born in Spain, others expatriates who deliberately chose Barcelona - that no longer thinks with local limits. They think globally, and genuinely believe they can build world-class companies from here. Not because they read about it, but because they know it is possible. Founders like: • Joan (QuiverAI) - building AI that generates editable vector graphics and structured design code • Pablo (Obsidian AI) - moving naturally inside the Y Combinator ecosystem • Elisenda (Cala AI) Expatriate founders: • Fabian (Afori) - former Wefox, backed by General Catalyst • Andreas (Bisquit) - Swedish, former Framer, backed by Sequoia • Baybars (Galtea AI) - Turkish founder building here • Alexandre (Amenities) - French founder already operating at serious scale Serial entrepreneurs already playing at global level: • Daniel (Supersonik) — backed by A16Z with top clients already. Top operators are also arriving. Dan, a fellow member of the Evantic Legends community created by Matt Miller, is another example of senior talent choosing Barcelona to live and contribute. Ecosystems don’t really change when capital arrives. They change when talent density changes. Barcelona had quality of life, creativity, and strong local talent. Now it is starting to accumulate something harder to create: global ambition, real execution, and people who choose this city not just to live - but to build serious companies. Barcelona is no longer catching up. It is becoming a destination. Spain is finally producing a generation of founders who can inspire the world. The future of global startups might just be built from Barcelona.

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Natalia Ruiz Saez nails it — €768.8M is momentum, but momentum without the right capital architecture is just noise. The 80% growth looks impressive until you realise most of it is still early-stage. The FOAK gap she describes isn't a financing problem — it's a structural design failure. Europe's public instruments were built for a different era. They penalise companies for raising private capital. They fragment across ministries with contradictory timelines. They reward applications, not deployment. Put it in context: Iberia needs an additional €50 billion per year to meet its green transition targets. The VC gap alone requires €4 billion more by 2030 just to reach parity with Germany. And that gap is widest precisely where it matters most — at the scale-up stage where technology either becomes industry or dies at demonstration. What Natalia describes — the #FOAK cliff, the permitting bottleneck, the absence of bankable offtake — these aren't Iberian problems. They're European problems most visible in Iberia because the innovation pipeline is strong enough to expose them. In the UAE and parts of Asia, policy adapts at the speed of technology. Regulatory cycles match deployment timelines. In Europe, we're still debating the framework for the framework — and then we wonder why the best founders test their technology here and build their companies elsewhere. That regulatory lag is Europe's single biggest export mechanism for innovation. Nobody talks about it honestly enough. And the founders aren't blameless. Too many build narrow vertical solutions without understanding that the industrial offtaker doesn't care about your component — they care about the output. The companies that will win think full value chain, from #molecule to market. The funds willing to sit through a 7-10 year hardware cycle with patient capital and proper de-risking — like what Natalia and her team are building at Suma Capital via SC Net Zero Ventures — are exactly what this ecosystem needs. Not another seed vehicle. Not another accelerator. Dedicated growth capital that understands cleantech is not software. 2026 won't be decided by how much capital enters Iberia. It will be decided by whether the right capital reaches the right companies at the right stage. The regions that solve this first capture the next wave of industrial value creation. The rest become R&D labs for someone else's manufacturing base. We advise and co-invest across this space with some of the most sophisticated capital allocators globally. The opportunity is real — but only for those who see past the headlines and into the plumbing. Kudos to Natalia Ruiz Saez, Bianca Dragomir and the Cleantech for Iberia team for putting hard data behind what many of us see every day in deal flow. #Cleantech #ClimateTech #Iberia #EnergyTransition #FOAK #ScaleUp #PatientCapital #CleanIndustrialDeal #DeepTech

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Great to see Greene presenting at our Demea Sustainable Investment Entrepreneurs Club in Paris. What makes Greene particularly interesting is the ability to industrialize circular economy solutions at scale. Converting non-recyclable plastic waste into valuable circular feedstocks is exactly the kind of challenge Europe needs to address if it wants to strengthen both its competitiveness and resource independence. Congratulations to Jorge Moreno Gorostizaga for presenting the project, and thanks as well to Juan José Hernández Samaniego for joining the event and contributing to the discussions. It was a great opportunity to showcase the progress being made and exchange views with fellow entrepreneurs, investors and industrial leaders. We are proud to support the development of three industrial pyrolysis plants in Spain and look forward to the next milestones as the projects move from construction to commissioning and operation. #CircularEconomy #WasteToValue #CleanTech #IndustrialDecarbonization

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A few data points on startup investment and the maturity of the ecosystem. Startups that have reached the final stage of the South Summit Startup Competition have raised more than €20.5 billion in investment, with a survival rate above 85%. This is not just about volume, but about sustained performance over time. One particularly relevant aspect is that the capital raised is not concentrated only in early stages, but also includes larger rounds at later stages, reflecting real processes of business maturity and scalability. In addition, Spanish startups alone account for more than €11.6 billion in investment, confirming the ability of the national ecosystem to attract capital and consolidate in competitive markets. Our Startup Competition has become a relevant early identification space for startups with real growth potential, especially in a context where investment is increasingly selective and focused on solid, scalable projects. Let's keep building 🚀 https://lnkd.in/etTRYwkQ #SouthSummit #Investment #VentureCapital #Startups #Scaleups #Ecosystem #Growth

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