Oriol Sans

Oriol Sans is the Senior Startup Manager at ACCIÓ, the business competitiveness agency of the Government of Catalonia. His primary goal is to have more startups becoming scaleups, particularly those in the deep tech field. The team he leads supports startups by addressing key growth barriers, such as access to markets, financing, knowledge, and expertise.

Prior to joining ACCIÓ, he worked at Deloitte (formerly Arthur Andersen) as a semi-senior in Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), as a venture capital manager at Invertec, and in the financial sector within the capital markets at BCH. He has served on the Boards of Directors of several startups, including Voz Telecom and TR Composites, and as an observer for companies such as Digital Legends, Crystax Pharmaceuticals, and Era Biotech, among others.

He has been a member of various investment committees for venture capital funds and Business angel networks, including Inveready Seed Fund, Invertec-Capital Concepte, Invernova, Ingenia Capital, and ESADE BAN. He has also participated in the shareholders’ meetings of Ysios Biofund I, Finaves I, and Invercat. Furthermore, he has served as an evaluator for the SME Instrument (Phase I and II) for the European Innovation Council and was a member of the Advisory Board for the European alternative financing project ALTFInator.

In the academic field, he is a professor for the MaDE Master (Advanced Design Management Strategy and Entrepreneurship) at ELISAVA and he is a regularly invited speaker to numerous courses and lectures. He has also taught Finance at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) and the Entrepreneurship and Financing course for the MBA program at Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

Regarding his education, he holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration and an MBA from ESADE, as well as a Master of International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He has also completed several specializations in venture capital hosted by Invest Europe, the European private equity and venture capital association.