Cuatrecasas Acelera starts ninth program to help six startups validate their legal strategy

Cuatrecasas Acelera is an open innovation program, launched in 2016, through which the firm offers its legal expertise to those startups with significant legal challenges that want to validate their legal strategy and accelerate their compliance process. The call for application to its ninth edition opens today, May 13 and closes on June 23. In line with its digital strategy, once again Cuatrecasas aims to promote the startup ecosystem in Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

Over a four-month period, Cuatrecasas Acelera will offer six startups legal advice in all the areas of law they require, with a view to working on legal strategies that boost the startups’ growth and business plans. Startups interested in participating must be in the deeptech, energytech, fintech, healthtech and insurtech sectors. Their project must deal with a relevant legal challenge arising from their own business model or from applying disruptive technologies linked, for example, to artificial intelligence, hydrogen, cryptoassets or blockchain. 

Cuatrecasas CIO, Francesc Muñoz, said: “Having worked with some of the most innovative and disruptive technology startups on the market, we are in a unique position to help them overcome the legal and regulatory challenges that often accompany innovation.”

As in previous years, after the Cuatrecasas Acelera 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 proposals received and select those that will be shortlisted for the program. The six projects selected to participate in the Ninth Cuatrecasas Acelera will be announced in September. 

The firm continues to expand the team of mentors with professionals with a proven record in different areas of law, 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.

As a new feature this year, all startups that are considering competing will be able to register for the first session of the Startup Law Workshops, which will take place in Barcelona on May 29 and in Madrid on June 4. These face-to-face law workshops are aimed at startups focused on identifying legal requirements, optimizing an exchange with value among the different initiatives and actors in the ecosystem, and contributing value to the innovation stakeholders in areas as important as intellectual property, labor, tax and commercial law. 

Cuatrecasas Innovation Project Manager, Alba Molina, remarked: "Startups working on disruptive technologies or that operate in regulated sectors should invest in a good team of lawyers from an early stage. This assistance will enable them to define a business model and activity with all the legal guarantees. Having a good labor and tax strategy, or having good IP protection, makes them more attractive for investment. Also, having good legal advice on the sector’s regulations will enable them to push forward with sales.”

For the seventh consecutive edition, Cuatrecasas Fast Track has a permanently open call for new projects to join throughout the year. This program tests international technology scaleups so that, 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 year, the Cuatrecasas Fast Track Program focuses on generative AI and will consider all applicants that respond to any of these four 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.

Application forms:

Cuatrecasas Acelera Program: https://cuatrecasas.onparallel.com/en/pp/formulario-aplicacion-9a-edici

Cuatrecasas Fast Track: https://cuatrecasas.onparallel.com/en/pp/codbj6yv