Roca Group and Plug and Play join forces to innovate in the bathroom ecosystem

Roca Group Ventures, Roca Group's venturing fund, has reached an agreement with the innovation platform Plug and Play. This will help Roca Group discovering new technological solutions that will enable to develop new business models and products throughout the value chain, while collaborating in the investment processes carried out by this platform.

Thanks to the Open Innovation, POCs (Proofs of Concept) will be launched between Roca Group and selected startups, an action that will be driven by the collaboration, ecosystem and methodology of Plug and Play. These collaborations are already underway thanks to Roca Group Ventures' role as a catalyst and link between the ecosystem and the Roca Group. Its main objective is to accelerate internal and external innovation in a hybrid way, through win-win associations in all geographies and verticals of interest to Roca Group.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley and present in more than 50 countries along the five continents, Plug and Play is a company whose mission is to drive technology forward by bridging the gap between the world's largest corporations and the most innovative and promising startups in various industries. Currently, the company has an ecosystem of more than 570 multinationals such as Mercedes-Benz, BP, CaixaBank, Vodafone, among others, that rely on its services to be at the forefront of innovation and adapt to a constantly evolving market.

In addition, the company has a venture capital arm that invests in more than 250 startups a year, making it the most active investor in the world. This has enabled Plug and Play to have 31 unicorns in its portfolio, including Dropbox, N26, PayPal and, most recently, Einride.

“We are proud to start this collaboration with Roca Group. Together, we will be able to drive innovation and digitalisation in the bathroom industry, in a context of high-value technological and sustainable challenges", says Saeed Amidi, CEO of Plug & Play.

In Daniel Valverde’s words, head of Roca Group Ventures: "This association will enhance one of the main characteristics of Roca Group: its innovative character. The synergies generated by joining forces allow us to develop our hybrid model of innovation, combining internal and external talent, on an international scale, and for the 170 markets in which the Group operates".