Cuatrecasas has launched the sixth edition of its legaltech startup acceleration programme, Cuatrecasas Acelera, with six startups set to benefit from mentorship offered by the firm’s partners and lawyers in order to help boost the growth of their business. 

The Barcelona-based firm’s latest raft of companies ventures outside the Spanish border for the first time with one startup, fintech company MO Technologies, to take part from its headquarters in Columbia. 

Also participating in the four-month programme are energy optimisation startup BIA, audiovisual company IZI Records, healthtech company Match Trial, document management fintech platform NB-RIC and multiplatform crowdfunding company Wixdom, all based in Spain. 

First spearheaded by chief information officer Francesc Muńoz in 2016 as the first European accelerator programme driven by a law firm, Cuatrecasas Acelera has supported a total of 35 European startups across the health, energy and media sectors. 

This year’s edition will see the participating companies engage in workshops covering commercial, IP tax and labour law as well as business matters including team culture, growth hacking, marketing, business models and sales. 

Two more companies, Spanish data analysis provider OMNIOS and Australian CRM platform NEXL, have been selected to participate in Cuatrecasas Acelera’s ‘fast-track programme’, oriented towards identifying and implementing solutions that resolve tech-related challenges identified by the firm. 

The startups will be mentored by a team of legal experts familiar with the legal aspects of the startup landscape, including finance partners Jorge Canta and Miguel Sanchez Monjo, energy specialist and longtime partner Juan Carlos Hernanz and M&A partner Juan Felipe Vera. 

Senior associates Ariadna Casanueva and Jorge Monclús, who specialise in life sciences and IP law respectively, will also participate in the mentorship scheme. 

Also set to support the participating startups is Italian B2B innovation platform Gellify, which will guide the startups through the validation and transaction process, the firm said in a statement. 

“In this edition, and after a purely digital year, we move on to a hybrid format, combining onsite activity with online activity to carry out the best mentorship of the accelerated startups, which have a higher maturity level with every year that passes,” Muńoz said. 

Muńoz added that the two startups selected for the fast-track programme will begin concept testing their solutions immediately. 

By launching the latest edition of its incubator programme, Cuatrecasas joins a number of other international law firms continuing their focus on investing in young innovative companies in light of the growing focus on legaltech and increased rates of digital adoption seen throughout the pandemic. 

But the Spanish firm is one of the few to offer mentorship to their elected startups in person. Among the firms to launch virtual editions of their incubator programmes are India’s Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, which unveiled the latest group of legal technology startups set to take part in its second tech incubator programme in June, while Magic Circle player Allen & Overy elected 11 new legal and financial tech companies to take part in the second fully-virtual and fifth overall edition of its tech incubator, Fuse, back in May.