Interview with Pere Camprovin, Head of Open Innovation at Fluidra

“We believe that internal talent is one of our most powerful sources of innovation”, we speak with Pere Camprovin, Head of Open Innovation at Fluidra, in a new INDPULSTALKS (Interview series with the INDPULS community) about open innovation and the company’s innovation challenges.

Fluidra, a founding partner of INDPULS and a global leader in the pool and wellness sector, is a company with extensive experience in developing innovative products and services in the residential and commercial pool market, with a presence in over 47 countries around the world. Open innovation has become a core pillar of Fluidra’s strategy. Since launching Fluidra Acelera in 2014, the company has promoted initiatives such as Fluidra Lab in 2018 and Fluidra Ventures in 2023, which have been key to accelerating the development of new products and technological solutions.

What role does open innovation play in Fluidra’s global strategy, and what initiatives are you currently working on?

Open innovation plays an important role in Fluidra’s global innovation strategy, as it allows us to open up our organization to ideas, technologies, and business models that arise outside our usual environment. This openness gives us access to technologies, talent, agility, and new ways to solve challenges that would otherwise be out of reach or take much longer to develop. Currently, we are driving various initiatives within Fluidra Lab, such as our investment fund for startups Fluidra Ventures and our intrapreneurship program Fluidra Innovation Booster.

You plan to invest 20 million euros in innovative startups in the sector over the next three years. What are the objectives of Fluidra Ventures? Can you give us a recent example?

Fluidra Ventures aims to identify and invest in innovative startups that offer solutions for the future of the pool and wellness sector, with the goal of building alliances that accelerate innovation and enable Fluidra to continue leading the global market.
As market leaders, we offer startups not only funding but also access to our global ecosystem: industry visibility and reputation, technical and market expertise, growth opportunities through our commercial and distribution network, industrial support, and testing capabilities at our R&D centers. We do all this with the aim of always bringing strategic value to Fluidra—whether through new product or service proposals, innovative technologies, new customer segments, new go-to-market channels, or potential future acquisitions.

Lynxight has developed technology capable of real-time monitoring of activity in public pools, improving safety and optimizing aquatic space management. This investment advances our commitment to smart and safe pools by integrating cutting-edge technology that enhances both user experience and operational efficiency for public and private pool managers.

What do startups bring to open innovation processes in companies like Fluidra and to the industry in general?

Startups inject dynamism, adaptability, and a strong capacity for innovation into open innovation processes. In companies like Fluidra, they provide the flexibility needed to explore new technological paths without the structural limitations of a large organization, allowing us to test and adapt innovative solutions much more quickly.

Moreover, they help expand our value proposition with new products and services for current customers, new technologies that can be integrated into our offering, and access to new customer segments and commercial channels. Some of these startups could also become strategic acquisitions within a 3 to 5-year horizon.

Fluidra also promotes a culture of intrapreneurship. What challenges and opportunities do you see in this area?

The main challenges lie in structuring the program to ensure its results are strategically aligned with the company’s needs and providing the right resources so internal talent can propose and develop their ideas.

In terms of opportunities, our intrapreneurship program empowers employees to act as entrepreneurs within the company and generates projects that can directly impact internal efficiency as well as the development of new products and services for our clients.

What does The Corporate Startup Rising Star 2024 award mean for you?

Receiving the Corporate Startup Rising Star 2024 award has been a major acknowledgment of the work done through Fluidra Lab and Fluidra Ventures. This award validates our commitment to integrating open innovation as a central part of our corporate strategy and motivates us to continue strengthening collaboration with startups and entrepreneurs. It also clearly positions us as industry leaders—not only in innovation capability but also in our commitment to developing a strong and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem.

What does INDPULS mean to you?

INDPULS is, for me, a great opportunity for cross-learning, where we can discover first-hand how leading industries from other sectors innovate and extract best practices that can be perfectly adapted to our own context. It’s also a source of inspiration that opens our minds to new ways of working, collaborating, and driving projects that we can apply at Fluidra to make the company even more agile, creative, and connected to the innovation ecosystem.

This interview is part of the INDPULSTALKS series, our space for conversation with the INDPULS community, where we address a variety of topics related to the industrial sector, innovation, sustainability, and management, among other relevant areas.