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Barkibu, awarded the 2025 Best Start-Up in the 14th edition of Esade Alumni Startup Day

The 14th edition of Esade Alumni Startup Day, organized by Esade Alumni and Banco Sabadell, was once again a prime meeting point for the entrepreneurial, investment, and academic ecosystem
Startup Day

The event aimed at fostering connection and adding value culminated with recognition of Barkibu as the 2025 Best Start-Up. The award distinguishes the track record of this company, founded by Pablo Pazos, which has become a European benchmark in the field of medical insurance for pets.

“We at Esade Alumni believe in growing and connecting the community; we believe in bringing value to others and improving society, and Startup Day is a good example of that,” said Patricia Valentí (MBA 02/Promociona 17), director of Esade Alumni, as she welcomed participants.

The event kicked off with a Matins Esade sponsored by CriteriaCaixa and featuring Avi Meir, co-founder and CEO of TravelPerk. Meir shared the keys behind the growth of this global corporate travel management platform since he founded it with Joan Riera (Lic&MBA 99), Academic Assistant in Esade’s Department of Strategy and General Management and CEO of Active Development.

Avi Meir

 

Artificial Intelligence serving animal health

The jury for the Esade Alumni and Banco Sabadell Award highlighted Barkibu’s international scale-up capacity and its strong commitment to social impact. The key to its success lies in its in-house artificial intelligence, which automates the majority of reimbursements in a matter of minutes, guaranteeing a high-quality, large-scale service.

“This award recognizes years of work obsessed with two things: technology and access to veterinary health. Our AI enables us to resolve reimbursements in minutes and attend to thousands of families with pets in seven countries. Our goal is clear: we want any pet in Europe to have access to outstanding, affordable veterinary care,” said Pablo Pazos, CEO and co-founder of Barkibu.

Barkibu is currently operating in seven European countries, including Spain, Germany, and France, and it forecasts closing 2025 with income of almost 50 million euros and more than 125,000 pets insured. The company’s ambition is for their veterinary insurance to penetrate the entire continent.

Pablo Pazos

Carlos Ventura (Lic&MBA 92), General Manager at Banco Sabadell, highlighted this exponential growth: “Barkibu has transformed veterinary care by applying AI and data. It has developed a solid, scalable business with major growth in an expanding market.”

Other features of Startup Day

Next came the time for participants to immerse themselves in the practical aspects of business growth with two round tables that offered prime perspectives, directly from the mouths of leaders who are redefining their industries. First, the panel “Marketing in action: Experiences from expanding companies” analyzed how scaleups are using creativity and data to grow exponentially in high-consumption markets, with Joan Domènech (BBA 14), Marketing Director for Spain and Italy at Kings League; Ferran López (Lic&MBA 07), CMO at Housify; Ariadna Puig (BBA 16), CCO and Director of Prevention at Qida; and Olivia Calafat (Lic&MBA 08), CMO at Wallapop, who debated with Mònica Casabayó, PhD (Lic&MBA 99), Associate Professor in Esade’s Marketing Department.

Startup Day

After that, the session “Being an entrepreneur in the cosmetics sector” debated the keys to internationalization and differentiation, with the participation of Claudia Mustera, founder of The Organic Republic; Estefanía Ferrer, CEO and founder of Lico Cosmetics; and David Hart, founder and CEO of Saigu Cosmetics. The founders concurred on the importance of internationalization, R&D, and digital marketing as key growth factors in a highly competitive sector.

Startup Day

The event also featured the pitches of startups in which Esade BAN has invested, like Celebreak, Iqana, ColorSensing, Drimer, and HairUp Laser.

How artificial intelligence is transforming venture capital

The event concluded with Luís Pareras, founder and Managing Partner of Invivo Partners, who talked about “The zero-cost mindset: How artificial intelligence is transforming venture capital.”  

Luis Pareras, who is deeply involved in the innovation ecosystem and the author of numerous books on venture capital and innovation in health, provided a snapshot of the future marked by artificial intelligence and robotics during his talk at Startup Day. With a projection he called “shocking,” Pareras predicted that 2026 will be the decisive year. “If I had to summarize what is going to happen in 2026, the adjective I would have to use is ‘shocking;’ 2026 will be characterized by science and agents,” he claimed.

Pareras delved into the concept of AI and drew a disturbing parallel with biological intelligence. He stressed that we essentially share a thinking mechanism. Even though AI’s consciousness has yet to be defined, Pareras stressed that the distinction will soon be irrelevant in terms of behavior. “I don’t know if AI has consciousness, but it will behave as if it does.”

Luis Pareras

One of the boldest predictions focused on the massive integration of AI-driven robotics. The expert highlighted the vast economic potential and the speed of this transformation, which will move “trillions and trillions of euros.”

Faced with the growing capabilities of machines, Pareras raised a fundamental question about the role of human intelligence. If in the past machines served as an outsourcing of specific tasks, AI now represents an outsourcing of our own cognitive capacity. “Before, machines were outsourcing something concrete, but today with AI it’s an outsourcing of our brain. If intelligence is already a commodity, what other values become necessary?” he asked. The answer lies in purely human skills that will allow us to adapt to this new environment: curiosity, the ability to influence, and communication skills.

Despite such radical transformations, Dr. Pareras described himself as a techno-optimist and, echoing ideas from Bill Gates, envisioned a potential “golden age” for humanity because “there will be an abundance of things without requiring much effort. The cost of all services will drop enormously, and we may move toward universal income.” However, this abundance also brings an existential challenge. The loss of the need to work may strip life of its purpose for many: “then there will be a problem of meaning.”

 

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