The Spanish government enters the capital of Onalabs: the technology company that monitors health through sweat
The Ministry for Digital Transformation, through the SETT, invests 4.6 million euros in this 'start-up' that seeks to make a place for itself in the market through innovation
MadridOnalabs is a company founded in Barcelona ten years ago. A deep tech that has spent a decade focused on research and development of a technology to generate a "paradigm shift" in the healthcare field, in the words of CEO Elisabet del Valle. How? It proposes a new way of monitoring health: moving from punctual blood tests to an "intensive" and continuous "monitoring" of people through sweat.
To do this, it wants to open a new stage of commercialization of its products, so Onalabs has initiated a funding round in which the State will also participate. Sources from the Ministry for Digital Transformation consulted by ARA explain that the Spanish government will invest up to 4.6 million euros in the technology developed by this company through the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT).
This is half of a funding round of 9.3 million euros in which private capital will also be involved. Onalabs, which now has around 30 professionals, also highlights the participation of international investors such as 1921 Ventures, dedicated to diabetes, and nPrime, with ties to Europe and Asia. "It's a turning point," says Elisabet del Valle, who founded the company together with chemist Xavier Muñoz. "It allows us to move from a stage focused on technological development to a new phase focused on the industrialization and internationalization of our technology," she adds.
From the Ministry for Digital Transformation, headed by Óscar López, they emphasize that the investment denotes the "Spanish government's commitment to the implementation of disruptive technologies and digitalization in the healthcare field." In other words, this investment is part of SETT's strategy to foster public-private collaboration.
In this regard, they highlight that its technology can revolutionize the healthcare field, as it seeks to know the state of an organism in "real time" from the metabolites (any molecule produced by the human body) present in sweat. It is a way to identify possible imbalances before they manifest clinically. Del Valle summarizes it as follows: "Continuous monitoring generates large volumes of longitudinal data that, analyzed through artificial intelligence, allow us to identify patterns, anticipate physiological changes, and move towards more preventive medicine".
In fact, in the sports field, a monitoring device aimed at athletes to improve their performance is already being marketed. The system offers real-time biochemical parameters such as lactate inferred from sweat, fluid loss, sodium concentration and loss, dehydration level or heart rate, and allows for "precise" decisions to be made to minimize risks and better leverage effort in competition. The idea is that similar devices can also be used to monitor chronic diseases such as diabetes or kidney failure.
Del Valle explains that they began marketing their products in 2025. Mainly two, ONASPORT, aimed at sports performance, and ONAVITAL, focused on the clinical field. The financing round in which the ministry has participated aims to industrialize the technology and bring it to "commercial scale" both nationally and internationally. The CEO explains her philosophy: it is not about competing with the large leading companies in the sector but rather a model based on "strategic alliances" so that Onalabs' technology is integrated into existing ecosystems and its use is accelerated. That is why, for example, they are already working with Barça: three years ago the club entered, through Barça Innovation Hub, into a capital increase of this company.
The ministry's bet
According to the Spanish government, its plan to foster economic growth includes this type of bets. From the Ministry for Digital Transformation, they are all advantages: they seek for companies like Onalabs to be a European "benchmark" in digital health and, in their opinion, this investment will also accelerate the local manufacturing of these devices and reinforce Spain as a hub for health-focused bioelectronics". The money comes from the European Next Generation funds, whose execution will end at the end of the year.