Spain’s rise as a key participant in Europe’s tech ecosystem can’t be ignored. Spanish tech startups had been collectively valued at over €100bn in 2023, representing a 14 per cent progress year-on-year from 2022. We now have undoubtedly gone from a tech minnow to an rising European tech powerhouse.
The momentum of the final 5 years alerts that the perfect is but to return. However regardless of the latest enormous strides ahead, it’s solely the tipping level of what guarantees to be a really thrilling future. Listed here are 4 the explanation why Spanish tech is a great distance from reaching its peak.
International buyers are pouring capital into Spanish startups
Although we have now by no means had an issue attracting vacationers, our sunny shores now make Spain one in all Europe’s high locations for tech buyers trying to park their capital. Consequently, Spain’s high-growth tech corporations are not merely budding underdogs.
A decade in the past, a world fund investing in a Spanish tech startup was, frankly, unprecedented. However in newer years, the panorama has finished a full 180. In 2023, we raised €2.2B throughout greater than 850 funding rounds throughout various ranges of funding (from rounds under €15m to these surpassing €100M). This surge in funding has enabled Spain to turn into the fourth-largest European hub for funding in early-stage corporations. One thing that might have been unthinkable within the early 2010s.
The variety of unicorns on our books – 18 thus far – displays the energy, resilience, and revolutionary potential of our startup panorama. With corporations like Glovo and Cabify not too long ago reaching billion-dollar valuations, Spain has firmly established itself as a really aggressive world tech huge hitter.
With buyers more and more trying past conventional European tech hubs, Spain has very quickly positioned itself as an especially viable selection for constructing scalable, high-growth tech corporations.
The Startup Legislation is usually a main catalyst for entrepreneurial endeavours
In 2022, Spain took a big entrepreneurial step ahead as a nation by introducing The Startup Legislation. Designed to make it simpler for entrepreneurs to start out and scale their companies, in addition to making Spain a extra interesting place for enterprise capitalists to speculate, it launched varied new beneficial legislative components.
Among the many key modifications, the regulation slashed company tax charges for startups, simplified the enterprise registration course of, and launched tax exemptions for inventory choices, making Spain a extra alluring dwelling for tech entrepreneurs. It even went as far as to streamline the visa course of for worldwide expertise, attracting the perfect and the brightest from all over the world to hitch Spain’s rising tech evolution.
Although this coverage shift marked a seemingly crucial turning level within the Spanish legislative stance on entrepreneurship, I consider it’s – and must be – solely the start. To proceed thriving, rising, and constructing, Spain should construct on this momentum by introducing extra insurance policies that help long-term innovation.
A decentralised ecosystem will stop innovation in isolation
Certainly one of Spain’s biggest strengths lies within the decentralisation of its tech scene. Expertise and alternatives are arguably extra evenly distributed throughout a number of cities than in different European tech hubs, such because the UK or France.
Our multi-hub mannequin reduces the reliance on a single tech cluster in a single metropolis or area, thus guaranteeing that we stay geographically diversified. Madrid leads in company tech and AI, Barcelona is famend for cell and software program startups, Valencia is pioneering in sustainability tech, and Málaga is quick changing into a cybersecurity hub.
What’s extra, the Spain Digital Agenda 2026 goals to strengthen collaboration and cement ties between our cities, guaranteeing that expertise, data, and sources circulate seamlessly between areas, making a extra strong and dynamic local weather for rising tech.
An unstoppable and unmatched expertise pipeline
Spain is quickly changing into a frontrunner in expertise improvement, with our universities taking part in a pivotal position within the tech house’s progress. Not solely do tutorial establishments such because the Polytechnic College of Catalonia and the College of Barcelona produce extremely expert graduates, however they’re now additionally huge hitters in European analysis initiatives like Horizon Europe. Collectively, that is driving innovation in fields like AI, robotics, and renewable vitality.
We now have additionally seen an increase in tutorial spinouts, with universities incubating profitable tech startups in sectors reminiscent of biotech and SaaS. The Barcelona Supercomputing Centre is a key asset, which is recognised worldwide for its high-performance computing capabilities. These strong engineering and analysis foundations are offering the Spanish tech house with the extremely expert expertise wanted to gas future progress and technological advances.
What’s subsequent then? Ongoing nurturing of our homegrown expertise expanded entry to capital, and renewed help for forward-thinking insurance policies that place our nationwide entrepreneurial spirit on the coronary heart of financial prosperity. With collaboration throughout cities and sectors, Spanish tech can actually lead the following wave of European innovation.
Concerning the writer
Julio Martínez is the Co-founder and CEO of Abacum, an organization targeted on automating Monetary Planning & Evaluation (FP&A) to enhance income forecasting and price management.
