IE Venture Network Enters The Barcelona Ecosystem

The IE Venture Network is a forum for early stage entrepreneurs to engage with the local startup ecosystem, test their projects, and introduce themselves to local investors and advisors.  At Venture Lab’s headquarters, in the basement of the IE Business School in Madrid, this translates into a weekly pitch slam held every Thursday night.  They have created a welcoming and informal environment for entrepreneurs to gain valuable feedback on their startup projects and meet the local entrepreneurial community.  

Tonight, however, they are spreading into the Barcelona Ecosystem to offer local startups and upcoming entrepreneurs the chance to meet investors and test their idea in front a live audience.   Presenting in IE Venture Network Barcelona’s first event will be startups from the Wayra, SeedRocket, and Barcelona Activa Incubators.

The local entrepreneurs pitching tonight will be Alejandra Sopranis of Dilunch, Dr. Sindhu Joseph of CogniCor Technologies, and Philippe Gelis of Kantox.

Dilunch.com is a project is answering the daily question we all face of ‘Where am I going for lunch today?’  Currently incubated within Barcelona Activa, Dilunch is creating a platform for local eateries and businesses to connect so restaurants can expand their reach and we never get tired of eating at the same ‘ol place over and over again.  

Cognicor, fresh out of incubation at Wayra Barcelona, has created an automated complaint resolution service for large companies to efficiently address disgruntled clients and improve their customer service.  Co-founder and CEO Dr. Sindhu Joseph is a Ph.D in Artificial Intelligence and the inventor of 6 technology patents in the U.S.  Her revolutionary technology is already in action at possibly the world’s most complaint-ridden telco, Telefonica.

Kantox is the peer-to-peer currency exchange platform that is taking out the really expensive middle guy, the banks.  CEO Philippe Gelis has felt the pain from banks for years as a Deloitte consultant working with banking and venture capital firms flushing thousands of dollars down the drain everytime they need to transfer money to another country.  The Kantox method of transparent and direct currency transfer is rapidly gaining traction and has already facilitated transactions numbering the millions of dollars.

The IE Venture Network Barcelona will kick off tonight at 19:00 at Restaurante Dime.  RSVP here and I’ll see you there!