Monkey Markets is the result of almost 10 years of its founders, Iago Sanmartín and Sebastián Wornham, experience in the Chinese market, first helping food and beverage manufacturers in Europe to sell in China and, later, working directly for Chinese companies to bring their purchases to Europe. "2020 was when we decided to start digitalising this process and we became a startup dedicated to creating digital bridges between China and the rest of the world," explains Sanmartín.

With the aim of helping agri-food SMEs to export to Asian markets, they design platforms to facilitate and overcome any obstacles that a company may encounter when trading with China, such as market opacity, the lack of a meeting point, access to information... "What drives us is to help the buyer to buy and the seller to sell. The platforms are vertical and focus on generating business between their users and their main contribution is to bring together all the agents involved in the market and shed light on all aspects of the process," he says.

Monkey Markets targets both exporters (SMEs and large companies licensed by China) and importers (SMEs and large companies from all 23 Chinese provinces but mainly located in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen).

Business Factory Food, the accelerator of the food sector promoted by the Xunta de Galicia and the Clúster Alimentario de Galicia (Clusaga), was a great boost for the initiative.

The project was selected in the first two editions, first in the acceleration phase and then the consolidation phase. "We decided to apply to turn our idea into a reality. It brought us closer to companies in the sector that allowed us to carry out real market tests, as well as supporting us with training in different areas. Financially it also made it possible for us to create what we needed," explains Iago Sanmartín.

At present, they have just created Meatup for the meat sector, a platform that brings together approved exporters from 35 countries and verified importers from the 23 provinces of China. The platform brings together a marketplace for product offers and demands, direct lines of communication between buyer and seller with integrated chats, a 100% directory of the target companies with the most relevant information on each one and a market intelligence section for strategic decision-making.

In addition, they have closed an investment round with XesGalicia. "Our future challenges are to continue creating platforms for the various food and beverage products, as well as adding functionalities that provide more value," concludes Sanmartín.