4YFN 2025
We found the startup ecosystem from 3rd to 6th March during the MWC at the last 8th pavilion.
The startup platform is where entrepreneurs, investors, and corporations connect to drive innovation and business growth with small, scalable, and performing ideas.
The 4yfn Awards are the selection picture of 20 startups in 5 categories: Digital Health category, Green Tech category, Fintech category, Digital Horizons and Mobile Frontiers.
The jury from Green Tech: Marta Laorden (McWin Capital Partners), Carlos Fisch (Seaya), Remy de Tonnac (ETF Partners), Fernando Casado Cañeque (INCLIMO Climate Tech Fund), Simone Hinrichsen (GSMA Innovation Fund).
The jury from Fintech: Giovanni Calabrese (Sella Group), Adam Battersby (Apis Partners), Damien Balsan (Conexo Ventures), Tamara Steffens (Thomson Reuters Ventures), Lily Joo (Venture Friends).
The jury from Digital Health: Mitchell Weinstock (IgniteXL Ventures), Andy Lürling (LUMO Labs), Victor Drault (Breega), Guillem Masferrer (Asabys Partners), Dietrich Aumann (Helsana HealthInvest).
The jury from Digital Horizons: Enis Hulli (500 Emerging Europe), Thomas Diehl (Notion Capital), Rui Rodrigues (Indico Capital Partners), Oleg Malenkov (TA Ventures), Laura Josipovich (Acton Capital).
The jury from Mobile Frontiers: Sébastien Lefebvre (Elaia), Emanuele De Leonardis, (Cathay Innovation), Faisal Zia (GSMA Foundry), Marta Antúnez (Wayra), Axel Menneking (Deutsche Telekom AG).
From each category, a remote Jury selected 1 startup per category.
Bankuish from Colombia has been crowned the winner of the prestigious 4YFN25 Awards with 20.000 euros. This groundbreaking fintech startup founded in 2020 is revolutionizing credit access for gig workers by challenging traditional banking models with a more inclusive financial evaluation.
Bankuish was last year with Telefónica Open Innovation (Wayra) ecosystem and has been recognized in several other Tech Fairs.
The announcement was made Wednesday during the 4YFN25, following an electrifying on-stage pitching competition in front of the onsite jury: Carina Szpilka (K Fund), Raymond Liao (Samsung Next), Zoe Peden (Ananda Impact Ventures), Fabian Gruner (HV Capital), and Vikram Taneja (AT&T Ventures)
Other Selected Startup I would like to point Qflow: It allows you to track certified material deliveries and waste movements on your site. Just taking a picture from the delivery notes of the trucks and transport companies.
The Catalonia Pavilion of ACCIÓ at 4YFN 2025 had 4 startups during the four days: Aridditive, Dapibus, Robopedics and Seabots.
In front of the pavilion, 32 startups were presenting their proposals.
I would like to highlight:
– Cleanmeal: Fresh, nutritious, and varied meals delivered right to the office. With their smart fridges, you can enjoy home-quality meals at your workplace.
– Dawa: A Platform offers a comprehensive suite of solutions designed to enhance your brand’s sustainable growth and financial performance simultaneously.
– Ealyx: Pay instantly with the things you own. Payment method that accept instant trade-ins with no risk. Letting your customers pay with used items.
– Wingwin: Delayed or cancelled flight? We pay you the compensation
immediately
– WindowSight: Stream digital art everywhere with ease. Is WindowSight Free? Yes. WindowSight is free. Our Supporter plans (Basic or Premium) improve the streaming quality of your experience, get rid of ads.
Infinit pixel a mural of photographies of an event.
Wayra have had a strong agenda with more than 30 startups, I will comment on some:
– Bit2Me: leading cryptocurrency exchange platform in Spain whose objective is to connect the digital world of bitcoin with the physical world of cash, and democratize the token economy and integrate Web3 into the real economy.
– Ciudadela: Property Services Marketplace offering a digital approach to managing all aspects of buildings and homes.
– Pointee: platform that helps track and improve RPA processes in your organization. Companies gain real-time insights, faster problem resolution, and a scalable automation ecosystem.
– Remuner: Sales commission platform that helps users align their company and employee goals by automating all aspects of variable commission plans.
– Legit.Health: A Revolutionary Clinical Data and Communication tool for Next-generation dermatologists that triples the empowerment of patients.
– Neural Fashion AI: The first platform specifically designed to transform the fashion industry through the use of Artificial Intelligence.
– Wise CX: Omnichannel solution focused on optimizing customer service by integrating all of companies’ contact channels, facilitating traceability and agile resolution of each of their consumers’ problems.
– Hiya: Protects people from fraudulent and spam calls, connects businesses with their customers, and helps carriers secure their networks.
– Shakers: streamlines and makes hiring processes more efficient. Centralizes the management of On Demand teams in a single platform: administrative and legal procedures and day-to-day monitoring, easily and securely.
From the Health Pavillion, the 8.1 I would like to highlight:
– Anura: Take a selfie, know your healthier! Anura’s intended use is to increase people’s awareness of their general wellness.
BStartup has bring some startup in their stand, but I have seen a big change of how financial institutions like LaCaixa and Santander have participated on the 4Y4N. I would like to highlight some startups that we have seen this days on their stand, but in my opinion, financial banks are always risking less to take advantage supporting new talents and ideas.
– Plesh: It has developed healthy snacks which combine flavor and health by using a mixture of prebiotic vegetable fibers to replace the sweet taste of sugar.
– Admit Therapeutics: Development and commercialization of a new technology for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease.
– Time is Brain: It has developed a medical diagnostic device that is capable of monitoring electrical brain activity in order to predict the recovery capacity of a patient who has suffered a stroke.
– Nanobots: It has developed a solution based on nanorobots propelled by physiological fluids (for example, urine) that are capable of penetrating tumor tissue and delivering almost any drug at concentrations high enough to eliminate cancer cells.
– Able Human Motion: Development of a lightweight, easy-to-use and economical exoskeleton for people with spinal cord injuries that restores their ability to walk.
– Improfit: Our platform includes AR (augmented reality) objects to gamify the exercises.
– Remuner: Plataforma de comissions de vendes que ajuda a alinear els objectius de l’empresa i dels empleats mitjançant l’automatització de tots els aspectes dels plans de comissions variables.
– Incapto: Native digital brand that offers an innovative business proposition through the sale of an automatic coffee machine and a coffee bean subscription system.
During the events from 4y4n, I have assisted different conferences, I would like to highlight :
– Alex Valls from Liquid Lab affirmed that we are close to saying bye-bye to the apps and UIUX Designers. Our companies and we will wellcome the agents. Agents are a piece of software with a mission driven. That Speak to data with natural language. Alex commented on what Sam Altman says about IA, that it will put 300 trillion into the economy. In 2027, we will see 1 employer that will lead a company of 1Billon revenue and present a roadmap for companies to understand, adopt, automatize and plan a full transformation in 2027.
– Janira Planes about communication to be authentic, be ironic and playfully, develop a distinct language, make communication useful and be community lead with a lot of examples from brand on social networks.
This year we have seen a lot of advertising of IA at MWC. Most of the big companies like Cisco, Ericsson, Google, Huawei, Intel, Lenovo, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung and Telefónica have presented something related to automatitzation—interesting new products from Realme, Oukitel, Wfiso and Nothing.
Google is at MWC showcasing AI for Android and how it can supposedly help in your day-to-day life, with two new capabilities for Gemini Live. The trailer video offers an example where an artist is asking advice on what glaze to use on pottery to attain a mid-century modern look.
Hold a conversation with Gemini Live about the product/item shared with your screen, like in the video where the user is given fashion advice on a pair of pants combinations.
Nothing OS 3 announced their 3r mobile, officially announced its mid-range duo, the Nothing Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro. The two phones are based on the same platform, but the Pro version adds a couple of extra features, better cameras and a different design.
Don’t miss the secrets behind its design.
Mia is an assistant from the catalan police; It can handle queries, procedures and complaints. It detects the user's language and asks several questions to collect as much information as possible.
Despite the numbers, this 2025 reaches its ceiling, matching its historical record of 109,000 attendees. According to fira de Barcelona, it brings 550 million euros to the city. The T-Mobilitat from MWC register 214.835 train tickets. Next MWC will be held from 18–20 June 2025 to SNIEC, Shanghai.
Barcelona, as the last Analisys of the startup ecosystem is the First startup ecosystem in southern Europe, The 5th best ecosystem in the EU for creating a startup.
This year, the Talent Arena at Plaça España, an opportunity to participate from the Mobile World Capital Barcelona, from February 3 to 6, is the accessible and free pre-registration option to enjoy conferences, professionals from the digital sector with technology companies and some educational institutions with a free entrance for Thursday to MWC. 20.000 people in 20.000 square meters, 200 sessions featuring leading figures who mark the technology course: Chema Alonso, ExDigital Director Telefónica, Antonio Torralba, GarryKasparov, Cristian Canton, Pedro Duque, Steve Wozniak, Xavier Amatriain, Sonia Lopez Codina, Cassie Kozyrkov …
Chema Alonso, who was fired from Telefonica at the end of the week. At the beginning of the week, onTalent Arena encouraged those who have an idea to do it. He warned us of the security challenges with the new AI technologies. With Eleven labs can clone a voice with a single audio file. Chema explains the challenge of developing analysis bots that detect not just the voice but also a video. If we give or sell our digital identity at pages like 3D scan store, how can we detect fakes in video conferences or video calls? Improving inconsistencies such as flickering in milliseconds, blinking or the brightness of the irises. We will need tools like Verifai.
New developments like Pupil pointer, will be able to enter our password only with our eyes, or we will have videos were the characters will only speak when we look at them.
Steve Wozniak confessed to us that he believes in the A of Artificial more than the I of Intelligence, which will require creativity in interpreting the answers as alternatives and being diverse and aware of the dangers of accepting AI as the truth. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you can’t just focus on the business model and then hire engineers and designers, you must co-create the proposal as a team from the beginning. In the generation of proposals, there is no a single look; it must respect the other disciplines and integrate design, communication and business in the conversation. To the question of the future of AI, he said it should be open-source, transparent, repairable and referable. To the question of
Cristina Gallardo, on the incursion of entrepreneurs or technological companies into the government, has said that governments cannot stand up as companies; social reality requires dialogue and consensus, beyond the logical efficiency of profit.
Montjuic Fair, bursting with young people, geeks, electronic music, flashes, and phosphorescent light, combined with workshops, hackathons, product demonstrations, virtual reality glasses, and even boarding the Tesla cyber truck. Banks, Insurance Companies, Cloud Platforms, Telecommunications Companies, Human Resources Agencies, and Business Schools… nobody wanted to miss out on sponsoring the event of the future without someone from the world of design.
We can prepare for next year, 2026, from 2nd to 4rd March.
You can read more about the Entrepreneurship Tech Fairs and what was on 4Y4N 2024 and 4Y4N 2023.
