Colvin wins Best Start-up of the Year award, organised by Esade Alumni and Banco Sabadell BStart-up
Colvin was presented with the Esade Alumni & Banco Sabadell 2021 Award for the Best Start-up, by Esade Alumni and Banco Sabadell BStart-up within the framework of Esade Alumni Start-Up Day. Decisive award-winning factors included the company’s considerable growth in the flower industry with a 200% increase in turnover in 2020, and the professionalization of its team. This start-up aims to be the number 1 company in the digital transformation of the global flower and plant market by offering customers fresher, quality products with a straightforward buying experience, whilst achieving considerable technological and logistic growth in the B2B channel. Colvin’s head office is in Barcelona. The company currently operates in Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy and intends to expand into France soon. Award-winners in previous years include Wuaki.tv, Visualnet, Kantox, Wallapop, Red Points, Signaturit, Glovo, Exoticca and Psious.
“Colvin was created with the very clear vision of changing and revitalising the flower industry. We are really excited about this award because it is organised by Esade’s network of former students, the university where we founders met each other, and above all because it is recognition of our team, work and ambition to transform this ecosystem by creating a digital platform that connects producers, distributors and florists more efficiently”, said Sergi Bastardas and Andrés Cester, founders of Colvin, who were presented with the award by the director of Banco Sabadell BStart-up, Yolanda Pérez.
Fernando Zallo, director of Esade BAN, the business angel network organised by Esade Alumni, highlighted that “When these former Esade BBA students (Bachelor of Business Administration) created Colvin in late 2016, their aim was to revolutionise the sale of fresh flowers to end users. They achieved this in just three years, and now they aim to make the B2B value chain go digital too. They have more than 240 employees and have received more than €70m of funding, including €45m in 2021”.
Wallbox, a disruptive, growing start-up
The Esade Alumni Start-up Day started with a talk by Enric Asunción, CEO and co-founder of Wallbox (design, manufacture and distribution of charging solutions for electric vehicles) who reviewed his company’s history from its inception to its recent floatation, during Matins Esade. Asunción announced that his global technology company “is already present in more than 80 countries” and that its mission is "to facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles in order to ensure a more sustainable use of sustainable use of energy". Founded in 2015, the head office of the company is in Barcelona, and it has more than 700 people including 38 nationalities in Europe, Asia and America.
The challenge of growth for start-ups and deep-tech opportunities
Under the slogan of ‘Back to the Future’, several cases of successful growth were also examined during the Esade Alumni Start-Up Day by Arnau Roigé, VP of Finance and Analytics at Colvin; Pere Vallès, CEO at Exoticca; and Sara Werner, CEO and co-founder at Cocunat, who outlined the key growth factors from start-up to scale-up. Likewise, Bárbara Buades, co-founder and CEO at Meetoptics; Cesare Cugnasco, CEO at Qbeast; and Miguel Silva-Constenla, co-founder and CEO at Allread Machine Learning Technologies, addressed the opportunities of deep tech for start-ups.
Yolanda Pérez, director of Banco Sabadell BStart-up, the entity that organised this initiative, pointed out that “this start-up day reflects the exponential growth under way in the innovation ecosystem. Apart from the outstanding example of Wallbox, we have also had a panel discussion about the approach to growth adopted by Exoticca, Cocunat and Colvin, three Catalan scale-ups with growth rates in double figures, sales that have increased considerably in the last year, and turnover generated 40% - 60% in international markets”.
Also taking part in Esade Alumni Start-up Day were Patricia Valentí, director of Esade Alumni, and Marc Torrens, professor in the Esade department of operations, innovation and data.
