The future belongs to children: 3 startups that are changing their day to day 2026

Three emerging companies promoted by Barcelona Activa offer a series of initiatives aimed at improving the lives of children

Every November 20th, World Children’s Day is celebrated, commemorating the UN’s adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. But it’s not just about commemorating a day: it’s also an opportunity to highlight startups that are transforming the lives of children, turning their projects into tools that improve their daily lives. In fact, Barcelona Activa has incubated three pioneering startups that are already making children’s lives easier and more fun.

Gate2brain or the innovative solution for pediatric brain tumors

Gate2brain is a Catalan startup that was born to promote a technology that helps drugs reach the brain better. Meritxell Teixidó, CEO and co-founder of the startup, explains it this way: “It’s like they’re tractors that go to the brain and that carry drugs as a trailer that don’t know how to go there on their own,” points out to VIA Empresa Teixidó, who details that Gate2brain, created in July 2020, is a spin-off of three institutions: the University of Barcelona, IRB Barcelona and the Hospital Pediàtric Sant Joan de Déu.

The co-founder has accumulated 20 years of research and has directed 10 doctoral theses. In her research, together with her team, they discovered that “peptides, which are nothing more than very small proteins, could act as tractors for the distribution of drugs”, points out the co-founder. In addition, they observed that almost all diseases of the central nervous system have associated research groups, both national and international, or companies that develop drug candidates. The main problem, however, is that 98% of these drugs need technology that helps them reach the brain.

Teixidó: “It’s as if they were tractors that go to the brain and that carry drugs as a trailer that on their own don’t know how to go there”

Based on this experience, the co-founders decided to start with a specific disease. They wanted to identify an approach that would have a high impact and that would also validate the potential of peptides as drivers, opening the door to future research. They chose to focus on pediatric brain tumors. “Children represent 25% of the current population and 100% of the future if we don’t decide to live to be 200,” says the co-founder.

The birth of Gate2brain coincided with the 2020 pandemic. At that time, Teixidó, together with his three co-founding partners, realized that during the years of research at the IRB they had discovered that peptides could act as “tractor launchers” and began to patent them. Meanwhile, the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu had identified a type of chemotherapy that could offer an opportunity to these children, but needed a tractor for its administration. Thus, they began to collaborate with the hospital, and from this synergy the idea of creating the company was born, winner of the seventh edition of the Barcelona Activa pre-acceleration program.