Launch of eighth Cuatrecasas Acelera Program to support startups with innovative legal challenges

Cuatrecasas Acelera—the startup accelerator program focusing on legal challenges promoted by the firm since 2016—opens the call for applications to participate in its eighth edition. The application period is open from today, April 18, until May 28. After the success of last year’s international participation and with a view to consolidating its internationalization process, the program focuses once again on promoting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, in line with the firm’s strategy.

All startups that are considering submitting their applications can put forward any questions about the Cuatrecasas Acelera Programs on Information Day, which will be held online on May 3 at 05:00 p.m. After the application deadline, an evaluation committee—comprising Cuatrecasas lawyers, external collaborators, and clients of the vertical markets in which the startups operate—will study all the projects received and select the startups that will be shortlisted for the programs. The six participants of the accelerator program will be announced in July.

"Launching the eighth edition is a source of pride for Cuatrecasas and reaffirms the commitment that the firm made to the entrepreneurial sector eight years ago. The ecosystem continues to value our program as one of the most interesting,” underlined Francesc Muñoz, CIO of Cuatrecasas.

Startups interested in participating must be in the legaltech sector or other areas such as fintech, healthtech, energytech, insurtech and deeptech. In addition, their project must deal with a relevant legal challenge arising from their own business model or from applying disruptive technologies related, for example, to artificial intelligence (AI), the metaverse, data and blockchain. The selected startups will receive legal support from all the Cuatrecasas practice areas and business support by Gellify over a four-month period, as well as access to clients and financing to develop their projects.

The firm continues to expand the team of mentors for Cuatrecasas Acelera, with professionals with a proven record in different areas of law and business, specializing in the different jurisdictions and sectors of the startup ecosystem in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, to offer comprehensive consultancy that is customized and adapted to each project.

“The startup response to every call for applications shows us the ecosystem’s existing needs. Startups using disruptive technologies need their activities to be 100% compliant to ensure sales and an exponential growth. In the program we not only help them to achieve that, but also to understand the benefits of having a good tax or employment strategy, for example,” explained Alba Molina, Cuatrecasas innovation project manager.

In parallel, Cuatrecasas Fast Track opens its second call for applications to incorporate new projects, throughout the year, in a program that tests international technology scaleups. In collaboration with Cuatrecasas, the startups can design, co-create and develop pilot tests relating to the business challenges currently experienced by law firms. This edition focuses on generative AI and will consider applicants that respond to any of these challenges: maximizing collective knowledge in Cuatrecasas; fostering productivity and efficiency in the legal sector through automation systems; developing solutions that enable digitalization of the relationship; and improving collaboration with the client to encourage customer engagement.

Registration forms: