B Accelerator Tower (BAT) opened its doors today 19 September in the Bizkaia Tower with the aim of becoming a large community of startups, companies, investors, scientific-technological agents and training centres, both local and international. “It was created to generate an ecosystem where entrepreneurship, innovation and added value are promoted”, said Gonzalo Sánchez, president of PwC in Spain. Furthermore, it was created with the idea of positioning Bizkaia internationally as an innovative entrepreneurship pole of reference in Southern Europe and to promote the dynamisation of the local entrepreneurship ecosystem through actions that enable interaction between the different agents.
BAT responds to a novel model in the field of international advanced entrepreneurship; a centre that is born of public impetus and will be operated by an alliance of private companies that are a benchmark in the field of business and innovation. In the words of Juan Mari Aburto, Mayor of Bilbao, the building “has become a modern complex that will take the most advanced ideas and lines at international level”. This community is connected to more than 140 international nodes, located in Boston, Dublin, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai and Singapore, where all the key players in the ecosystem interact to create solutions that allow them to grow and lead new opportunities. Along with this connectivity and global reach, BAT differentiates itself by putting the sectorial focus on those projects that are more intensive in technological innovation and more sustainable business models.
Basque Center for Applied Mathematics – BCAM is one of the active members as part of the innovative entrepreneurship hub that will be developed in the community with the mission of creating a sustainable model to face the challenges of the future and commitment to the environment, to be tractors of talent, and to bet on collaboration and strategic alliances to promote an enriched and productive innovation ecosystem.
Together with BCAM, leading entities from the Basque and international ecosystem will form part of BAT: Iberdrola, Petronor, Repsol, Nortegas, Elecnor, Ormazabal and Arteche in the field of energy; Kutxabank and BBK, BBVA, Santander, Laboral Kutxa, CaixaBank and Sabadell from the Fintech sector; Euskaltel, Telefónica Ibermática, Gertek and Retabet in the telecommunications and technology sector; CAF, Mondragón Corporación, Kapsch, Tubacex, Euskontrol, Viuda de Sainz, Altuna and Uria in the industry, infrastructures and mobility sector; Eroski, Kaiku and La Salve in the foodtech sector; the Azti and Tecnalia technology centres, universities such as UPV/EHU, Deusto and Mondragon Unibertsitatea, clusters and sectoral agents such as Gaia, Energy Cluster, Aclima, Uniport, Eraikune, ACICAE, Port of Bilbao Foundation and the mobility and logistics cluster, as well as investment agents and/or accelerators such as Blackshiip, Inveready, White Summit Capital, Easo Ventures, Talde, Artizarra, berriup and Stellum Capital.