Startups: why is Spain worth twice as much as Italy? A few lessons from Madrid
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With a value of 93.6 billion dollars, an increase of 8.4% compared to the previous year, the Spanish startup ecosystem in 2022 was worth more than double the Italian one (44 billion dollars ours, despite a growth of 42.5% also due to the European maxi-funds transiting through the Pnrr).
Although still far from continental champions such as Germany (471 billion), France (326 billion) and the Netherlands (299 billion), Spain is grinding excellent results: as a recent report by PwC reveals, the Iberian innovation system, which grew by 28 % in five years, at the end of 2022 it was strong with 218 accelerators (+57% compared to 2021), 109 incubators (+10%) and over 12,000 startups (+8%) for around 160,000 jobs (+14%).
Spain third in the EU for startups
In terms of number of startups, within the EU Spain is third behind Germany and France. And things are bound to improve thanks to the incentives of the recent law Crea y Crece.
To the point of making the Iberian innovation ecosystem very attractive to Italians as well, as demonstrated by the good presence of Italian startups at South Summit, the maxi-event co-organized in Madrid by IE University which was attended by 6500 hi-tech companies ( including 21 unicorns) and two thousand investors, with a combined firepower of over $326 billion.
Resurrected from the ashes
But when the milagro Iberian? «The turning point was 2012, when we hit rock bottom with the euro crisis – explains María Benjumea, founder and CEO of South Summit -. At that moment we understood that we had to change pace in a structural way, with speed and a spirit of adaptation. The key was to create a real ecosystem, because startups by themselves don’t mean much: you have to make them grow, be able to connect them, multiply them».
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