CaixaBank shows the Leaders its commitment to technology and venture capital

CaixaBank, one of the leading banks in Spain and Europe, provides significant support to startups of all kinds. Through various venture capital funds, it has accumulated investments of more than €232 million in more than 50 funds and startups in Europe and North America.

In India, CaixaBank has had a representative office in New Delhi since 2011. The bank has achieved market shares of over 33% in documentary letters of credit for export and import, and almost 40% in managed guarantees between Spain and the region. It has also participated in flagship projects led by Spanish companies in sectors such as infrastructure, energy, and services.

CaixaBank's headquarters in Madrid was the venue for the latest meeting of the Leaders 2025 Program. There, participants met with Joan Rosás, Director of International Institutional Relations, and other members of the CaixaBank team to learn about the bank's work in supporting startups and technology companies.

“CaixaBank is recognized worldwide for several reasons. One of them is its technology: it has always been considered one of the technological leaders in the banking system (…) We work with many Indian banks, but particularly with the State Bank of India and its foundation. We have several social programs in the country.”

Following the Leaders' presentation, CaixaBank experts gave a series of presentations on the bank's work related to startups. First, they discussed venture capital funding for startups through the Venture Deb fund. “Our clients were requesting loans, and it has been difficult, over the last decade, to lend to technology companies because these are asset-light business models. Software, for example, doesn't have physical assets. We launched a €150 million fund solely to lend to companies in Spain and Portugal, but we will need to expand it to other geographies (…) We finance companies from the initial phase to Series B or Series C. We can lead rounds. Regarding Venture Debt, we manage tickets from €1 million to €15 million, and our use cases can be very diverse. For example, we can finance working capital needs or mergers and acquisitions.”

The Leaders were interested in investing in software and artificial intelligence companies. The CaixaBank expert noted that “it is quite diversified, but yes, there is a big push around software,” and CaixaBank tries to be “quite flexible” regarding the fixed assets and properties used to grant loans.

Shivanshu Dwivedi inquired about how Spanish venture capitalists perceive companies that collaborate with the government. “For example, in India, it becomes a bit problematic. Venture capitalists aren't very open to investing in B2G startups.”

In this regard, at CaixaBank, “we haven't seen many companies selling to the government. But, if I think about the aerospace sector, for example, there have been successful companies here in Spain that work with the government and have been backed by venture capital.”

They also emphasized the potential for Leaders companies specializing in drones to do business in Spain. “We recently met with one of the largest food producers. They mentioned that the use of drones in the Spanish agricultural sector has great potential. For example, we are the world's leading olive oil producer. All olive oil producers belong to this business group, and it's relatively homogeneous. So, for drone technology, it's easier to capture data. They could have a potential market in Spain.”

The conversation then turned to the future of Artificial Intelligence for banking. “Banking, specifically European banking, is a different ball game when it comes to AI. We started working with and using models twelve years ago. There was a boom in the sector, especially after 2015. What's the next wave? The difference between this wave and the previous one, with machine learning, etc., is that over the last 15 years, we've built teams of data scientists, controlled the output of the models, and the information we provide. In the last two years, generative AI has become entrenched, and we're losing control. Right now, we're working on how to implement generative AI to boost productivity. This is what I call the bank employee of the future. We're visualizing what work in branches will be like in the next three, five years, etc. What kind of tools will bank employees have, regardless of how they prepare their work or how they face customers, to increase their productivity? We're currently discovering many opportunities.”

The Leaders also had the opportunity to explain the success factors of their startups. For Shivanshu Dwivedi, CEO of Predulive Labs, “My company is built on technology, and we believe that scalability is innovation, and scalability is what allows us to make significant progress.”

In the case of DronaMaps, Devanshee Deepak emphasized that “we want to take this platform and make it a market-leading solution for infrastructure monitoring and urban planning worldwide, not just in India.” Utkarsh Singh, the company's CEO, emphasized that “the success of a startup lies in finding a niche. Roads are the niche we fit into. Roads will always be important; they will always be built and maintained. I think that product-market fit is what most startups fail to achieve.”

Ruchi Saxena, for her part, indicated that in the case of Caerobotics, “people are the ones who make the difference. If we manage to spread our vision and persevere in it long enough, anything will be achievable (…) We have a broad vision, but also a very specific one: to generate social good on a large scale and bring technology to those who need it.”

The meeting concluded with the presence of Ambassador Dinesh K. Patnaik, who noted that “India and Spain are doing a lot together. When I arrived, our bilateral trade was only $6 billion. Now it's $10 billion. In three years, we've increased by more than $1 billion each year.” He also emphasized that “there is a lot to do in the startup sector. And we can do a lot together. Two or three areas are health technology, education technology, and space technology, so there are many things we can do together.”

Meeting attendees:

▪️ Joan Rosás, Director of International Institutional Relations

VIII edition activity summary