“We raised the flag to call to action the ambitious women of Barcelona and we have turned our space into a magnet for these women; they all come there with a thousand ideas and a hunger to eat the world”. This is how Liana Grieg, one of the founders, summarized yesterday the experience of the first year of operation of Juno House, the first club only for women that opened its doors in April 2021 in Barcelona, ​​with the aspiration to “bring together a community of feminist and influential female talent”.
An aspiration that, according to Natalie Batlle, first executive and co-founder of Juno, has been fulfilled. “The woman to woman spirit is unstoppable; in just one year we have turned what was a project into a success story and the market and business vein is bigger than we thought: Juno House has become a great collaborative community and a meeting point for to the woman who wants to be part of this change”, he said at the press conference called to celebrate the first anniversary of the club.
And this great community has not gone unnoticed in the business world. Emerging brands and multinationals have seen in Juno House a window of opportunity, a kind of laboratory where they can test ideas given the diversity of the members. The promoters – with the ambition they show off – have taken advantage of this to diversify the business model and open new lines of business by offering Juno House as a strategic partner for companies that want to make themselves known or grow in Barcelona. They have already partnered with 25 companies, including Bumble, Andbank and Shiseido. “There is pure business in here, we are ambitious women, but with an ambition based on collaboration over competition, and with this approach, after a year, we have already seen many successful cases born here â€, explained the third co-founder of Juno, Eva Vila-Massanas.
They have also decided to create an online store to give more visibility and buying options to all the initiatives led by the entrepreneurial partners under the Juno brand, and have expanded the possibilities already offered by the physical store, located at the entrance of the club. “We are a company and we want to grow, but with purpose, without losing sight of the idea of ​​creating networks of female talent and of linking ourselves with the city of Barcelona”, emphasized Vila-Massanas.
According to the promoters, Juno has more than 500 members, twice as many as when it opened its doors. “We are aware that the bigger our community is, the more impact we can offer, and that is why we are now launching a new type of membership with a smaller quota for those women who want to participate in our program of events and not so much in our facilities”, announced Batlle. The partners who supported the project in its beginnings paid a fee of 1,200 euros a year. Those that have been added after starting the activity, between 150 and 165 euros per month. And those who opt for the new typology with reduced services will pay 65 euros per month, plus the 475 euros registration fee that all members must pay at the beginning to “demonstrate their commitment to the community”.
Silvio ElÃas, who was there to celebrate the anniversary on behalf of Sandrigham – the asset manager of the ElÃas family that provided the financing to make the project a reality – did not spare praise for the founders and assured that, in his extensive business career, he has rarely seen such a spectacular execution and success story. He was also pleased to be able to verify that the disruptive idea that was proposed to him of bringing people together to do business on the basis of collaboration and sharing, not competition, can become a reality. What ElÃas did not want to specify were the business figures, although he assured that the project is being able to generate enough resources to finance the new projects without having to expand the two million initial investment.
For Greig, part of this success has to do with the fact that partners find Juno a place to do business and professional contacts, but also a safe space to express themselves from a more human point of view, where talk to other partners as friends, enjoy care services or cultural activities. And, given that it works, these ambitious women are already studying the opening of new Juno Houses in other cities in southern Europe, although the investor made it clear that it will not be this year: Barcelona must be consolidated first.
