Agreement of great importance to detect 100 business ideas and the acceleration of 32 startups. The National Innovation Company, SME, SA (ENISA) and the Association of Science and Technology Parks of Spain (APTE) and have given the green light in Transfer to the collaboration agreement together with 10 science and technology parks to launch the APTENISA program ideation and business acceleration.
The creation of new technology-based companies will be facilitated and the obstacles they face during their growth will be reduced, thus supporting their development and making them more competitive. This is the objective of the APTENISA program in line with the objectives of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Government of Spain and with the law on the creation and growth of companies.
APTENISA will support entrepreneurship from the initial idea to the acceleration phase, validation of the business model and constitution through a common methodology, based on the candy innovation model and lean lunch pad methodologies, to be developed by the 10 science and technology parks that participate in their first pilot edition. The candy innovation model is a methodology based on four phases (challenges-ideas-prototypes-scaling) presented at the 2017 International Congress of the IASP – International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovations by Professor Josep Maria Piqué de la Salle-URL.
The lean launch pad is a methodology academically designed by Professor Jerome S. Engel of UC Barkeley that uses the scientific method to validate business hypotheses by combining the business model canvas and the processes of customer discovery, customer validation, customer creation and company building.
Likewise, APTENISA, taking into account both the territorial gap, the connectivity gap and the lack of a gender perspective, will commit to promoting initiatives that promote digitization or the implementation of technologies in the different sectors, as well as female entrepreneurship.
Science parks, as added value
In addition, the actions will be complemented with the training and creation of an investment community of business angels in the environment of the innovation ecosystems of the science and technology parks so that they finance the entrepreneurial initiatives in the earliest stages and connect with venture capital funds and exit markets (exit plans) linked to companies that innovate by buying startups.
A collaboration that ENISA values very positively. “Science and technology parks host companies with high added value in terms of R&D&i that also require support and financing, not only for their projects, but also for their business models and their market launch. Joining forces is essential to promote innovative entrepreneurship and to do so, in this case, hand in hand with APTE, we hope it will be a great opportunity for many companies”as pointed out by José Bayón, CEO of ENISA. “Both institutions are going to contribute, in addition to financing, pedagogy and knowledge of a sector that is essential to advance not only the country’s economy, but also the opportunities of those who undertake and generate wealth with their worth”adds the manager.
For his part, for Felipe Romera, president of APTE “This program represents great support from ENISA for the capacity of science and technology parks to promote entrepreneurship and protect the growth of innovative, disruptive and technology-based companies. This capacity will be reinforced by the application of a common model in all the participating parks and the collaboration between them to promote not only the development of these startups, but also the synergies and collaboration between them, the latter aspect being very important for ensure the sustainability and competitiveness of these initiatives”.
