Hermeneus World, a Basque company based in Leioa, Bizkaia, has established itself as one of the leading national providers of solutions for business associations, large companies and public entities that offer their SMEs digital tools in a simple and fast way, thanks to its platform, capable of unifying key functions such as sales, reservations, order organization, invoicing or customer relations. (Autor: Mireia Ochoa)
Founded in 2011 by Eduardo Elorriaga, Hermeneus World had identified a need among many associations and public administrations for a common way to help their SMEs digitize their operations without having to develop custom solutions for each one. “We saw that most small businesses lacked modern tools, but that their representatives—associations, clusters, city councils—were looking for a comprehensive solution to bring everyone up to date,” explains the CEO.
During its first few years, the company underwent an intensive investment cycle focused on developing its technological platform and its initial pilot projects. “Digital adoption was still in its infancy,” recalls Eduardo Elorriaga. Consolidation began around 2020, when accelerated digitization fueled interest in collaborative models. In that year, Hermeneus World “was recognized by the European Commission as the EU’s best practice for revitalizing and modernizing small businesses.”
Today, the company has 15 professionals and works for provincial councils, city councils such as Madrid and Barcelona, the Ruralvia Group, and the BBK Banking Foundation. Its technology powers 45 active platforms, enabling more than 12,000 SMEs with 350,000 products to access top-tier digital tools.
The current flagship product is TheOneMarket, a cloud-based platform that allows associations, large companies, and public entities to offer their SMEs their own digital space immediately. Each organization can deploy its own platform, and each business gains access to a user-friendly environment for managing sales, reservations, orders, invoicing, and returns.
Among the best-known examples are the digitized municipal markets using TheOneMarket, where shoppers can make a combined purchase from different stalls and receive everything in a single order, or pick it up at smart lockers with access control. temperature. The same technology is also applied to various sectors such as industry, restaurants, healthcare, and professional services.
This company is characterized by offering very rapid implementation based on pre-existing and tested technology, allowing associations and organizations to launch the service without the costs and time involved in developing from scratch.
The firm invests nearly 30% of its revenue in innovation, especially in new functionalities based on artificial intelligence, automation, and data analytics.
Recently, it received support from the Kloud – SPRI Group program, facilitating the implementation of a new cloud infrastructure that improves the platform’s speed, stability, and scalability, thanks to the collaboration of its technology partner, Linube.
Future challenges include its rapid internationalization through a global network of partners specializing in implementing the platform in their respective countries; its first international project has begun in Portugal.