During Exponential Day , an annual event organized by Catalonia Trade & Investment to promote business innovation, Jaume Baró, Secretary and CEO of Catalonia Trade & Investment, presented the 10 most disruptive companies in Catalonia for 2025. The 10 most disruptive companies in Catalonia in 2025 are: 4BlueTech, Admit Therapeutics, Casa Batlló, Grup Estabanell (Energy in the Cloud – ERIA), MatHolding – VEGGA, Protofy.xyz, Sequentia Biotech, Sycai Medical, UniSCool and Yplasma.
They were all awarded the ‘ Catalonia Exponential Leaders ‘ distinction, which recognizes them as leaders in the field of disruptive innovation.
ACCIÓ’s “Exponential Leaders 2025” report, which recognizes the ten Catalan companies with the most transformative potential, reveals a key strategic connection: 30% of these leading companies have promoted their applied research through the Industrial Doctorate Plan. Sequentia Biotech, Sycai Medical and YPlasma, leaders in bioinformatics, medical diagnostics and plasma technologies, exemplify how collaboration between academia and business is a decisive driver for deep tech innovation that defines the future of the economy.
This link demonstrates that the Plan is not just a training program, but an innovation policy instrument that acts as a catalyst in the initial stages of technological development, allowing companies to address highly complex challenges that subsequently become their main asset in the market.
Sequentia Biotech, the consolidated leadership in bioinformatics
Founded in 2013, Sequentia Biotech has become an international benchmark in bioinformatics, specializing in transforming omics data (genomics, metagenomics) into useful knowledge for the health, agriculture and industry sectors. With clients in more than 60 countries and a recent €10 million Series A funding round led by Seventure Partners and the EIC Fund, its MICK cloud platform is today a standard in microbiome analysis.
On his path to this leadership, his participation in the Industrial Doctorate Plan in 2015 with the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) was a fundamental step. The project focused on creating a biological atlas of the structural organization of genomes in three dimensions. This research allowed the development of software tools to understand how the genome folds, a key factor in identifying the causes of complex diseases and designing future therapeutic targets, thus consolidating the company’s technological foundations.
Sycai Medical, the AI revolution in oncology diagnosis
Sycai Medical is one of the most prominent MedTech startups on the scene today. Founded in 2020, it has developed an AI-based assistant that helps radiologists non-invasively detect precancerous lesions in abdominal organs from computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Recognized as the most disruptive startup at South Summit 2024 and after closing a €3 million round in 2025, its solution is already in use in leading hospitals.
The technological base of this innovative product was strengthened thanks to the ongoing Industrial Doctorate project that they have been developing since 2021 with the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). The research focuses on applying deep learning techniques to improve the quality of medical images, eliminating distortions. Having a clean image is crucial to accurately train the lesion detection algorithm, making it more reliable and robust for clinical use.
YPlasma, the new frontier in energy efficiency and refrigeration
Created in 2024 as a spin-off of the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), YPlasma has made a strong impact on the deep tech ecosystem. Its technology, based on plasma actuators without moving parts, allows for fluid control and revolutionary thermal management for sectors as diverse as electronics, aerospace and energy. Named startup of the year in Catalonia in 2024 and with a seed round of 2.5 million dollars closed in 2025, its projection is global.
To advance one of its key applications, YPlasma has opted for the Industrial Doctorate Plan with a project proposal with the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). The objective is to study and optimize the use of its plasma actuators to improve the efficiency of wind turbines. Through computational simulations and wind tunnel tests, the research aims to demonstrate how this technology can increase the power generated, opening the door to a new generation of more productive renewable energies.
