The Diplomat
The ICEX-Invest in Spain ‘Rising Up in Spain’ programme, aimed at supporting the establishment of international talent in Spain and enriching the Spanish entrepreneurial system, has completed the selection of the 15 winning international startups for the 2020 call.
The 15 startups come from Argentina (2), Chile (3), Colombia, United States, Israel, Netherlands, United Kingdom (2), Russia, Singapore, Switzerland and Ukraine.
‘Rising Up in Spain’ received 355 entries from 62 different countries. Specifically, 49.8% of the entries came from Latin America, 22.2% from Europe, 19.4% from Asia, 5.3% from Africa and 3% from North America.
All the selected companies propose innovative services through the application of technology to a wide variety of fields such as renewable energies, logistics, agriculture, customer service, biotechnology, intellectual property, human resources, education and e-commerce, according to ICEX.
These innovative projects will be able to start benefiting from the programme’s services telematically due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while the situation is restored and they can begin to streamline their procedures to physically relocate to Spain.
Thanks to the ‘Rising Up in Spain’ programme, the 15 selected startups will receive assistance for the development of their idea in Spain through a specialised acceleration programme adapted to the needs of each one, provided by Cink Venturing and TheVentureCity; two leading accelerators, experienced in mentoring and connected to a wide network of investors.
The startups will benefit from advice on the process of creating the company in Spain (soft-landing), support in areas such as the formal incorporation of the company, tax and labour advice, etc. They will also have access to a wide network of investors, free work space for six months, support to attend investment forums specialised in obtaining funding for startups, visibility in the media specialised in entrepreneurship and visa facilitation.
ICEX-Invest in Spain will offer its usual support services for setting up in Spain for all those projects that are not winners of this call but will develop their productive projects in Spain.
Since it was launched in 2016, a total of 1,050 companies and entrepreneurs from more than 70 countries have applied to the programme. Of these, 55 startups have been selected so far, very diverse both in terms of the technology of their proposals and their origin, to which these 15 new ones have now been added.
