We are immersed in a kind of ‘Golden Age’ for startups, in which Spain is already the fourth European country with the most entrepreneurs, behind the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Last year there were more than 10,500, multiplying by five those that existed in 2015. In the same way, the value of the ecosystem multiplied, from 10,000 million in 2015 to 46,000 million in 2021, according to data from the Spanish Tech Ecosystem.
In the unstoppable growth of entrepreneurship, the great leap that new companies seek is to scale the model, that is, to be the so-called scaleup. They are startups that have some experience and want to take a more ambitious leap, in many cases thanks to internationalization. This process is curiously simpler for startups than for SMEs, since they have more financing. According to ICE, Spanish startups received 659.4 million euros of financing last year, representing 83% more than what was received in the previous year. In addition, foreign investment increased by 152%.
An example of the strength of Spanish entrepreneurship is that in 2022 there are already nine unicorns (startups with a valuation of more than 1,000 million euros) in our country, as well as another 20 that could be in the near future.
To achieve a scaleup it is important to have an internationalization project. Therefore, one of the strongest points in this process are the large investments that are made, both national and those from other countries, to later make a practical analysis of the market to which it is going to be directed.
Oriol Pascual, CEO of Stage2, expresses that internationalizing is a strategic decision and a proactive activity for projects that aspire to have great growth, and that on the other hand implies ambition. Within that idea, he talks about how important it is for startups have a global vision from the beginning: “The great challenge is to explain the importance of internationalization, of having it from day one and not when ten years have passed, from day one feeling global and doing it strategically, in a planned way”.
For his part, Jordi Aguasca, director of Technological Transformation and Disruption at ACCIÓ, later explains a reflection and first step that startups can take to access the international market without the need to start with such a high investment: “From here what can you do? If your product can be sold through digital channels, it is not necessary to start testing new markets by installing yourself in those markets, but rather test through digital platforms if your product is well received by the consumer there first, and if you see that it is, later you will consider other costs.”
