Bankinter Innovation Fundation launches the Startups Observatory, notes 40% increase in sustained funding and number of investments

The Bankinter Innovation Foundation is taking another step forward in its commitment toward entrepreneurial activity as it launches its Startup Ecosystem Observatory today. This initiative aims to add value to the market and entrepreneurs by providing them with important information to measure the performance of this segment in Spain and to help agents in this ecosystem take decisions.

To fulfil its purpose of adding value to the ecosystem, the Observatory is today providing entrepreneurs, the media and people interested in the entrepreneurial landscape with a free digital tool open to the public containing data on investment in startps. This tool will be constantly fed with new public information. It can also be enriched with any information startup players wish to provide.

The Observatory gathers all data made public from funding rounds for startups in Spain since 2018, presents an analysis of major aspects in the ecosystem and makes data interactive as a source of reference to help entrepreneurs and investors take decisions. 

The interactive analyses of the Startup Ecosystem Observatory also reflect such aspects as:

- Global data on investing in Spain in terms of major sectors, investments and most active investors.

- Year-on-year perspectives on startup funding, comparing various data such as the size of each funding round.

- Investment analyses and trends, with information on monthly performance, investor types and fund origin.

- Analyses of divestment (exit) transaction to anticipate trends, with data on performance and fund origin.

The Startup Ecosystem Observatory’s first act was a report presented today by the director of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation, Juan Moreno, and by the head of the bank’s startup programme, Javier Megías, on ‘Investment Trends in Spain in 2019’.

The main trend found by the report is that sustained investment (that which is recurrent, without large, one-off financing) is growing at a sound pace, namely 47% and totalling 735 million euros. Furthermore, the number of investments made last year increased by 44% in a total 231 funded ventures.

Nonetheless, all investments made in startups, including in large and exceptional funding rounds, amounted to 1.218 billion euros in 2019, down slightly by 2.9% year on year.

Despite this decrease, the Observatory finds that startups are experiencing sound, organic growth and that investments are less likely to be concentrated in a few ventures.

It also concluded that seed-stage (the initial stage) and Series A funding (of one to five million euros) was rebounding significantly.

Furthermore, the report reveals that foreign investment in Spain continues to grow. Even though foreign venture capital funds only invested in 15.2% of funding rounds, they still made over 56.8% of all investments in the year. This confirms that foreign funds are investing larger amounts.

Top sectors for startups include mobility and logistics (preferred by investors), as well as fintech and insurtech.

Barcelona continues to lead the cities with the most investment in startups, accounting for 53.6% of total investments. However, Madrid is not far behind, as it attracted 22.9% of investments in 2019 and 37.6% in 2019. ​

According to Juan Moreno, director of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation, ‘2019 was a strong year for startup investment in Spain, in terms of amount and number of investments. It also shows a higher distribution of investments, with less concentration in a small number of projects. With the Startup Observatory, we hope to continue to provide the ecosystem regularly with an X-ray of its performance, which, I expect, will improve and contribute increasingly more to the economy’.

Javier Megías, head of startups at the Foundation, pointed out that ‘even though investments had amounted to slightly less than in 2018, investment growth in the ecosystem was very positive, and there is an interesting outlook on the coming months for both foreign investment and startups during the most significant phases of growth (such as those following the initial phase), where they become more mature’.

The Bankinter Innovation Foundation has been involved in the startup world for years, investing with Bankinter Capital Riesgo. It is strongly committed to growth in this ecosystem.

The report and data from the Bankinter Innovation Foundation’s Startup Observatory can be accessed via the following link: https://www.fundacionbankinter.org/startups/observatorio