Twelve companies from the UPC community prepare for investment with the new edition of Next Frontier Founders

Deep technologies (deep tech) are characterised by being disruptive, making everyday life easier, promoting sustainability and solving global challenges. To access this market, however, it is necessary to have a clear value proposition, adequately protect innovation and understand regulatory frameworks and strategic financing needs. The Next Frontier Founders programme, promoted by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) with the sponsorship of Fractus , within the framework of the Fractus-UPC Deep Tech Hub, begins its fourth edition with the aim of supporting twelve technology-based companies led by entrepreneurs from the UPC community in refining their business proposition so that they can move towards the market, scalability and investment.

From 2 October, the date of the welcome session and the start of the programme, until March 2027, the founders will participate in practical training sessions on the different areas of business development, such as financing, legislation, intellectual property and communication, in order to immerse themselves in the deep tech ecosystem and understand what the next steps for their project may be in business terms.

UPC entrepreneurs will also receive mentoring and participate in three networking sessions that will allow them to establish direct contact with the sector, including two Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions: one with international investors, which will take place within the framework of the Barcelona Deep Tech Summit 2026, and another with CEOs of national companies and institutions. The third is the Matchmaking session, which allows participants to hold short interviews to create synergies with representatives of organisations and people interested in investing.

Once the sessions have been completed, the entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to present their project at the UPC Pitching Session, which will take place on 4 March 2027 at Four Years From Now (4YFN), or to have a presence at the UPC Startup Corner at the same event. 4YFN is an international benchmark in the world of technological entrepreneurship and takes place within the framework of MWC Barcelona.

The Vice-Rector for Transfer, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UPC, Jordi Berenguer, and the co-founder of Fractus, Rubén Bonet, welcomed the participants and praised their entrepreneurial spirit. Berenguer did so with these words: “I am proud to see how engineers like you use the knowledge you have acquired at the University to improve the services available to citizens.” For his part, Rubén Bonet recalled that “Fractus was one of the first start-ups to emerge from the UPC. The University gave us an opportunity to create our company, and it worked for us,” and expressed his satisfaction that new entrepreneurs are also being given this opportunity.

Bonet and Berenguer welcomed the participants

Innovative solutions in health, process optimisation and artificial intelligence
The 12 selected companies —eight start-ups or emerging companies and four spin-offs or derived companies— develop innovative devices and software that respond to individual and business needs and, at the same time, contribute to creating a healthier, more efficient and sustainable society.

In the field of health, the spin-off WomenUp has developed, together with Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, a device that helps reverse the symptoms of female urinary incontinence through a mobile application and a device that guide patients when performing pelvic floor exercises and capture information. Haptika Technologies, for its part, has designed a tool so that people who use arm prostheses can recover their sense of touch and regain confidence when carrying out everyday tasks. They are currently working on a new line of sensory neurostimulation of the legs for rehabilitation.

In the area of well-being, FAWE combines active ingredients of natural origin with neuroscience to develop cosmetic products that act as supplements and not only improve the appearance of the skin but also contribute to dermatological health.

One of the areas of application with the greatest number of business ideas in this edition is the optimisation of industrial processes and decision-making in different sectors, ranging from building management to agricultural planning. XC Gradient proposes software for industrial SMEs that structures industrial manuals and procedures, and Durbec Aero proposes a platform to manage drone flights in restricted airspace legally and safely. Likewise, the spin-off The Grid presents a suite of tools based on digital twins to optimise building management throughout their entire life cycle. For the agricultural sector, Nextvibe Innovation is developing an autonomous robotics platform that allows continuous monitoring of agricultural robots and transforms environmental data into useful information, while Kylia has developed agricultural crop management software that provides estimates to help farmers plan irrigation, fertilisation and possible pest controls.

With regard to the deployment of artificial intelligence, the spin-off GAISSA has designed a solution that monitors energy consumption and automatically optimises AI models to make them more economical, faster and more sustainable, while KeyNode proposes a decentralised GPU infrastructure that allows inference and training to be carried out while reducing dependence on major American providers.

Finally, Lupo Rooms is a platform that helps students who will be doing an Erasmus programme in various European cities to find a room that meets their requirements by automating the search, booking and rental management processes; the spin-off Biometallum is developing a biotechnological process for the recycling of electronic waste with the aim of offering a more sustainable and profitable alternative to conventional processes for recovering valuable metals.

A programme with proven impact
A total of 39 companies have participated in the first three editions of Next Frontier Founders, 11 of which have generated one or more patents in areas such as energy, medical devices, climate technologies, robotics, agri-food technologies and the automotive industry. This volume of patentable projects highlights the programme’s capacity to attract initiatives with a high degree of innovation, potential for technological protection and market potential.

Overall, the companies that have participated in this programme have secured €36.5 million in public and private funding and have contributed to the creation of more than 130 jobs. These figures reinforce the programme’s prestige as an acceleration platform for deep-tech projects with the capacity to grow, protect their innovation and generate economic and industrial impact.

Investor Mathieu Carenzo gave a session on private financing in which he answered
participants’ questions.