Tag Archives: Spain

Financial Times, News

Spain’s smaller start-up hubs play to their strengths to attract investment

Entrepreneur Félix Martín-Aguilar is looking overseas to expand his Málaga-based start-up. It’s not that he has anything against the Spanish city, his hometown, but Aliqindoi, a device as a service platform, is ready for the big time, he says, and in some ways his choice shows how Málaga is, too.

In the past, that might have meant seeking venture capital funding in Madrid or a buyer in Barcelona’s tech ecosystem, but Martín-Aguilar and colleagues are aiming beyond Spain thanks to a partnership between Málaga incubator BIC Euronova and Berkeley Skydeck, a start-up accelerator at the University of California, Berkeley.

“We have a chance to be a Silicon Valley company,” Martín-Aguilar says, although he intends to keep the Málaga location, with no need for a Madrid or Barcelona stepping stone. Had he not started his company at BIC Euronova “we probably wouldn’t even have heard about” the partnership, Martín-Aguilar says.

The big cities dominate In the first years after the end of the strictest Covid travel restrictions, from 2021, Madrid and Barcelona competed to be Spain’s top start-up location, welcoming digital nomads and international investors. The regions of Madrid and Catalonia still dwarf the rest of Spain’s start-up hubs combined: they accounted for 29 of 33 public start-up funding rounds or deals in January, according to digital media company El Referente. To attract talent and investment, therefore, the smaller hubs have had to be creative and play to their strengths. 

Now, as Spain pulls ahead of the EU’s largest economies in economic growth, Valencia, Málaga and San Sebastián have topped their bigger rivals in Madrid and Barcelona in the FT-Statista ranking of European start-up hubs for 2025, with Valencia-based accelerator Lanzadera making it into the top 10.

Investors are putting more funds and employing more staff in these up and coming start-up hubs. Last year, IMEC, a nanoelectronics research consortium headquartered in Belgium, announced it was setting up its second research and development centre, employing 450 staff, at the Andalusia Technology Park in Málaga.

“That’s going to be very, very important. It’s going to take three or four years to get to full speed, but there will be lots of demand for small start-ups to support that centre,” says Álvaro Simón de Blas, chief executive of BIC Euronova, in Málaga.

BIC Euronova is an elder of the Spanish start-up scene. Founded in 1991, it has survived the 2001 dotcom crash, the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2020 Covid-19 recession. This year it is second in Spain only to Lanzadera in the FT-Statista ranking, coming fourth for mentoring.

Exploit regional advantages

Málaga, on Spain’s southern Costa del Sol, has a longer history as a tourist destination than a start-up hub, but the start-up promoters have turned that to the region’s advantage. “What we’ve done is encourage passive residents, who might not have been investing or working here, to create new companies,” Simón de Blas says. “That’s made it so that 20 per cent of the companies are foreign, and that sets us apart from Madrid and Barcelona.”

Indeed in 2018, UK investor Tom Horsey helped to found start-up accelerator StartupLabs Spain, in both Seville and Málaga, and has since invested in some Málaga start-ups. “Málaga’s public administration is very efficient at institutional support,” he says, referring to how it promotes BIC Euronova and the larger Anadalusia Technology Park. An earlier endorsement came in 2012, when Google acquired Málaga-based cyber security start-up VirusTotal and decided to grow the team in place.

The city is also host to the school of telecommunications engineering at the University of Málaga. Martín-Aguilar started Alqindoi, his second start-up, at BIC Euronova in part to tap into the local pool of graduates and because of the lower cost of living in the region compared with Madrid, Barcelona and many other leading tech cities in Europe. When Martín-Aguilar showed his business plans to his contacts in California recently, they asked whether he had made a mistake listing such low salaries compared with other cities.

Disadvantages of small hubs

Despite the attractions of the talent pool, Spain’s smaller start-up hubs do face certain disadvantages. “One of Málaga’s pending tasks is funding,” Martín-Aguilar says. Simón de Blas agrees: “There have been investor groups that have brought money from outside, but the local fund scene is still in development.”

Another limitation may be local tech workers’ language skills. Horsey blames a weak grasp of English among staff in part for the failure of one of his Spanish investments to obtain enough funding. “I do think that that’s changing,” Horsey says. “Previous generations of founders help make it very clear to the newer generations that this is a necessity if you’re going to play the start-up game, raising money; and the younger founders tend to be better at languages than the older ones.”

While Madrid and Barcelona start-up founders are working on their third or fourth successive young business, most hubs in Valencia, the Basque Country and Andalusia are closer to their second generation. In the coming years the relative difference in experience will shrink, and each region’s distinct advantages may play a bigger role. “As we pass through the generations of founders, it becomes less and less necessary to have public support and the private sector starts taking over,” Horsey says.

First published in the Financial Times: [html] [pdf].

Civio

Translated story: An Olympian transfer market

By TER GARCÍA, MARÍA ÁLVAREZ DEL VAYO

Sometimes countries sign on new citizens as if the countries were a sports club in need of foreign athletes. In most cases, these are people with a strong connection to the country, who have been playing and training there for many years, perhaps even enough time that they could have obtained nationality through the ordinary route, by residence. That was the case for track athlete Majida Maayouf, who was born Moroccan and has lived in Spain for 13 years. She obtained Spanish nationality in June 2023 through a letter of naturalisation.

Other times, there is no previous relationship with the country, such as in the case of Megan Gustafson, whom Spain naturalised at the same time as Maayouf. Gustafson, a professional basketball player from Wisconsin, had never set foot in Spain before. The Spanish Basketball Federation requested her naturalisation, Marca reports. Something similar happened with Lorenzo Brown, whom Spain naturalised so he could represent it at Eurobasket 2022 despite the fact that he had never played here. Brown is playing for Spain’s men’s basketball team at this summer’s Olympic Games.

Most European countries have legislation providing pathways for their governments to grant nationality by decree to people for achievements in sport, culture or science, or because it is in the country’s interest. The academic project Globalcit compiles such naturalisation laws and regulations, among others, and Civio and European Data Journalism Network partners recently published a journalistic investigation of their impact across Europe. These express naturalisations are direct and depend only on the arbitrary decisions of the government in power. Above all, they are quick, especially compared to conventional residency requirements to obtain nationality, which range up to 10 years in Spain, Austria and Italy. Such official residency requirements are just a minimum: normal applicants must add the time it takes sluggish public administrations to handle their applications, which we found rarely occurs within official time limits and have taken more than five years in Spain and up to six years in Greece.

At least 25 athletes will compete at the Paris Games after being granted citizenship by decree of a European country. This is the case of Ekaterina Antropova, a Russian volleyball player, whom Italy naturalised in August 2023. Antropova arrived as a minor in the country in 2018 with a residence permit and has been part of the Italian volleyball federation since. Another newly Italian Olympian this year is marathon runner Sofiia Yaremchuk, of Ukrainian origin, who obtained Italian citizenship due to sporting merit in 2020.

Andy Diaz, of Cuban origin, will also play for Italy. Italy naturalised him at the beginning of 2023 “in consideration of the activation of the procedure by the president of the Italian Olympic Committee” for the “excellent results achieved in his sporting discipline”, according to a communique from the country’s Council of Ministers. It is a similar story to that of another Cuban-origin athlete Jordan Díaz, a naturalised Spaniard. Díaz took advantage of a sporting event held in Castellón to leave the Cuban team and settle in Spain. In just eight months he obtained a Spanish passport. Boxer Enmanuel Reyes Pla left Cuba in 2019 to try to join part of his family in A Coruña, Spain. He travelled to Russia, where he was trapped for half a year, and then went to Austria, where he requested asylum and was admitted to a refugee camp, Relevo reports. After spending a month in a German prison, he managed to reach Spain. There, in January 2020, the Spanish government naturalised him by decree. Other asylum seekers, on the other hand, must wait five years to apply for citizenship. In Spain alone, 13 athletes will represent the country at the 2024 Olympic Games, having obtaining citizenship by decree.

Portuguese athlete Nelson Évora’s comments about his teammate Pedro Pichardo’s naturalisation has set off a debate in Portugal about the differences between athletes who obtain nationality through ordinary means and those who obtain it by decree. Évora, who is from Ivory Coast, had to wait years to become Portuguese, he told Radio Observador, while Pichardo, of Cuban origin, obtained his nationality within months on sporting merit. Pichardo was granted Portuguese nationality in 2017, months after fleeing the Cuban delegation with which he was training in Stuttgart, Marca reported. Portugal gave Pichardo nationality in just seven months.

Other European countries such as Greece and Slovenia are also adding athletes using the fast-track route. Greece did it in 2023 for Thomas Walkup, an American-born basketball player and Olympian since 2021, who will play for the Greek national team at the Paris Olympic Games. Elizabeth Omoregie, born in Greece to Bulgarian and Nigerian parents, is playing handball for Slovenia after obtaining Slovenian nationality in 2017 by decree.

The Russian athletes’ diaspora

At least four of the athletes who have been naturalised by decree in EU countriesto compete in the Olympic Games come from Russia or Belarus, which the IOC banned from the Paris Olympic Games due to their 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In addition to the volleyball player Antropova, EU countries have naturalised by decree the formerly Russian wrestler Dauren Kurugliev (Greece), formerly Russian rhythmic gymnast Ekaterina Olegovna (Slovenia) and formerly Belarusian sprinter Kryscina Cimanouska, who requested asylum in the Polish embassy in Tokyo during the 2020 Olympic Games. Two years later, the Polish government granted her citizenship.

First published by Civio: [html] [pdf]

Civio, Data visualization, Features

Investigation: People of no nation: how being stateless means living without rights

This is the third of a three-part investigation I co-reported and co-wrote with María Álvarez del Vayo, Ter Garcia, Carmen Torrecillas, and Adrián Maqueda of Civio with help from some EDJNet partners. Part 1, “Investigation: One small step for a few, one giant leap for the rest: how to become a European citizen” is here. Part 2, “Stranger in a native land” is here. The data visualizations are only visible at the Civio website. También hay una versión en español.

Imagine not being able to sign a work contract or not being able to access social or even health services. Forget travelling, enrolling in university or getting married. That is the reality for thousands of people not recognised as nationals by any state. “They have no rights,” says Nina Murray, head of policy and research at the European Statelessness Network (ENS) a London, United Kingdom-based network of civil society organisations.

Many stateless people, Murray explains, come from states that have disappeared. Or they have been displaced from their homes by war or for other reasons. Others have no nationality, because of gaps in the laws of their country of birth: they may be the children of stateless persons or of people whose countries do not recognise as citizens the children born to their citizens abroad. Some people are stateless because the country where they live does not recognise their country of origin as a state, as in much of the European Union (EU) for people from Palestine or Western Sahara.

Continue reading Investigation: People of no nation: how being stateless means living without rights →
Civio, Features, Madrid

Investigation: Stranger in a native land

This is the second of a three-part investigation I co-reported and co-wrote with María Álvarez del Vayo, Ter Garcia, Carmen Torrecillas, and Adrián Maqueda of Civio with help from some EDJNet partners. Part 1, “Investigation: One small step for a few, one giant leap for the rest: how to become a European citizen” is here. Part 3 “People of no nation: how being stateless means living without rights” is here. The data visualizations are only visible at the Civio website. También hay una versión en español.

Faussan was born in 2016 at Moncloa University Hospital in Madrid, Spain. By then, nine years had passed since his parents left Bangladesh to live in Spain. “When he was born, we registered him and gave him a Bangladeshi passport, because he was not Spanish, he was Bangladeshi,” explains his father, Hassan. When Faussan was one year old, his parents applied for Spanish nationality on his behalf. Despite being born in Spain in 2016, it was not until 2020, four years later, that Faussan finally became a Spanish citizen.

If Faussan had been born in another European Union (EU) country, his early life might have been different. In Germany, Portugal and Ireland he would have acquired citizenship automatically at birth. That is because, though citizenship isn’t granted automatically to everyone born in these countries, it is available to children of people legally residing there for specified periods. As with any other baby born in the country to citizens, Faussan’s parents would have gone to the registry to register his birth as a citizen, they would not have had to apply for a residence permit for him, and the child would never have appeared on Spain’s list of naturalisations because he would have been a citizen from birth.

Continue reading Investigation: Stranger in a native land →