SAALG Geomechanics, startup from the first edition of The Collider, the innovation program of MWCapital Barcelona, is one of the 74 companies selected to enter “Accelerator” program of the European Innovation Council (EIC) among more than 1000 participants.
SAALG was born from an idea of two doctorate students, Cristian de Santos and Ignasi Aliguer, from Geotechnical Division at Civil and Environmental Civil Engineering Department at Universitat Politècnica of Catalonia. The company develops and commercialize DAARWIN, the first and unique software that combines and analyzes predictive models of the ground, monitoring data, construction process and historical data in a digital environment; allowing the ground behavior prediction and making construction a more sustainable, efficient and safe industry.
In recent years, SAALG had the chance to work in more than 30 international projects where DAARWIN has been used for public infrastructure owners such as HS2, DB or BIMSA and some others, big construction companies like ACCIONA, Ferrovial, Boygues or Balfour Beatty and international engineering firms like Mott MacDonald and Cowi.
Since its beginning, SAALG has count with the support of the most relevant agents of national entrepreneur ecosystem, Mobile World Capital Barcelona through its Venture Builder program The Collider, Lanzadera program by Juan Roig, ENISA, CDTI and the business angel Xavier Capellades. They also received support from construction industry through their Corporate Ventures (CEMEX and Mott MacDonld), and the investment vehicle Scale Lab Andorra from Crèdit Andorrà.
With the recent access to EIC Accelerator program, it will keep improving its technology to become an industry standard, at the same time that the team grows, and the company expands commercially reaching new horizons.
EIC Accelerator program focus on small and medium companies whose technology is unique and is in an advanced state of development (TRL6-8), but not enough mature for its commercialization (TRL9). It gives financial support for the development of their innovations up to 2,5 million euros for development costs and venture capital up to 15 million euros for company growth and other costs. This amount can be increased if the company develops solutions of strategic European interest.
To summarize, it offers a combined financial investment of direct capital and a grant that refund eligible costs from innovation activities, prototype creation, R&D, intellectual property management or technology demonstration in different environments. To access it, requesting companies must present a 6-year business plan that foresees the financial and employment situation of the company at the end of this period.
In SAALG’s case, the company enters the program with its combined format of grant and investment (Blending Finance) with a total amount of more than 3 million euros and with the objective to reach a total amount of 5 million euros through private investment.
With these funds, SAALG, wants to become a referent in geotechnical analysis in construction sector and contribute to make construction a more sustainable, efficient and safe industry.