1. VDS has become one of Valencia’s major international showcases. How is it helping position the city, and what role can it play in developing its technology industry?
For years, we’ve been working to build a strong technology ecosystem, connecting talent, universities, startups, investors and major companies. And I think we’re now seeing the results. That ecosystem has given rise to a technology and innovation industry that develops solutions, creates businesses, generates jobs, attracts investment and competes internationally.
And VDS is playing an important role in that. VDS is strengthening Valencia’s position as a tech bridge between Europe, Latin America and the US. Today, we’re able to bring together startups from around the world, American investors, Latin American companies and major international corporations, connecting markets and creating opportunities from Valencia.
We have talent, excellent universities and research centres, an increasingly strong technology sector and a city with an enormous capacity to attract international professionals. I don’t think we need to replicate the model of London, Paris or Berlin. Valencia has its own strengths, and we should build on them.
For me, the next major step is to enable more companies to grow globally from Valencia while keeping their teams and decision-making centres here. To achieve that, we need to continue attracting later-stage investment, talent and international business opportunities.
2. VDS will celebrate its ninth edition on October 21 and 22, expecting more than 12,000 professionals from over 120 countries, after generating €26 million in economic impact in Valencia in 2025. How much further do you want the event to grow, and what are your priorities?
When you look at how much VDS has grown over these nine years, it’s genuinely impressive. We’ve managed to bring some of the most influential people and companies in the international technology industry to Valencia.
This year, we’ll have more than 600 speakers and leaders from 17 unicorns. Those are significant figures, but we don’t want to grow simply for the sake of attracting more attendees.
What interests me much more is understanding the opportunities that come out of those encounters. A founder being able to sit down with an investor they would normally struggle to reach, a major corporation discovering a technology it needs, or a conversation leading to a project that continues to develop months later.
The €26 million in economic impact generated by last year’s edition also demonstrates VDS’s ability to drive economic activity in Valencia. But our ambition goes well beyond that.
We want to keep raising the calibre of the people taking part and, above all, make the connections increasingly meaningful. I believe the next big step for VDS is not so much about becoming bigger, but about generating more investment, more deals and more tangible business opportunities.
3. VDS will bring together more than 800 investors collectively managing over €300 billion in assets. In addition, startups participating in 2025 expected to raise more than €560 million in funding following the event. How do you turn that concentration of capital into real business opportunities?
The most important thing isn’t getting as many investors as possible to attend. It’s making sure they connect with the right companies.
Every fund has its own strategy, the sectors it invests in, its typical investment size and preferred investment stage. And every startup arrives with different needs. Some are looking for funding, while others are seeking customers, strategic partners or opportunities to enter new markets.
The same applies to major corporations. Many are looking for technological solutions to very specific challenges, and they may find exactly what they need in a startup.
At VDS, we work to bring all these interests together and facilitate something incredibly valuable for any entrepreneur: direct access to people who have real decision-making power.
It’s also important to understand that investments and business agreements aren’t always finalised during the event itself. Very often, an initial meeting leads to months of conversations and work.
But when that connection eventually results in an investor backing a company, a new customer or an opportunity for international expansion, that’s when we see the true value of VDS.
4. Artificial intelligence, defense, aerospace, energy, health and mobility will be among the major themes at VDS 2026. Where are the technological opportunities with the greatest potential to transform the economy emerging?
I think we’re experiencing a major shift. Many technologies are moving beyond the experimental stage and beginning to find real applications across companies and entire industries.
Artificial intelligence is the clearest example. Two or three years ago, we were mainly talking about its potential. Now the conversation is about how to integrate it into production processes, automate tasks, develop new products and transform the way we work.
We’re seeing intelligence itself begin to become infrastructure. We’re no longer talking only about isolated tools, but about systems that can change how entire companies and industries operate.
And things become even more interesting when AI is combined with advances in robotics, new energy systems, dual-use technologies or neurotechnology.
All of this is happening against a changing international backdrop. Europe needs to strengthen its industrial capacity, develop critical technologies and advance its strategic autonomy to become more competitive and resilient.
I believe many of the biggest opportunities in the coming years will emerge precisely there, among companies capable of turning these technological advances into real solutions that can be brought to market and scaled.
5. The VDS Startup Competition has received a record 1,560 applications from 87 countries, with 25 startups selected for the final. What differences do you see between the projects coming to VDS today and those from a few years ago?
Above all, I see greater international ambition and a much higher level of business maturity.
A few years ago, it was quite common to come across excellent technology projects that were still figuring out how to expand beyond their home markets. Now we see teams developing their solutions almost from day one with the ambition to compete globally.
They’re also tackling much more complex challenges, using advanced technologies in areas such as healthcare, energy, artificial intelligence, ClimateTech and dual-use systems.
And there’s something I find particularly encouraging. Entrepreneurs are increasingly aware that having great technology doesn’t guarantee you’ll build a great company. You need to find customers, sell, hire talent, secure the right financing and know how to compete internationally.
I think that shows just how much the technology entrepreneurship landscape has matured. Today, we see startups combining outstanding innovation capabilities with a much more complete understanding of what it takes to build a company that can grow.
And that’s precisely what we’re looking for through the competition: identifying projects with enormous potential and connecting them with investors and major companies that can help them take the next step.
6. Carl Lewis will be the headline speaker at an edition featuring representatives from NVIDIA, IBM, Spotify, AstraZeneca, Rolls-Royce and LG Technology Ventures. What does VDS aim to achieve by bringing together leaders from such different fields?
For me, having Carl Lewis at VDS is something special. He was my childhood idol. In fact, he’s the reason I started running and practising long jump. If someone had told me back then that forty years later we’d have him at VDS, I wouldn’t have believed it.
He’s an extraordinary figure. Nine Olympic gold medals and recognition as World Athlete of the Century. His career represents something that goes far beyond sport: what it takes to reach excellence and sustain it for years at the very highest level. And I think there are lessons from that experience that translate perfectly into the business world.
Alongside him, we’ll have executives and experts from NVIDIA, IBM, Spotify, AstraZeneca, Rolls-Royce and LG Technology Ventures, among many other companies. People who are developing technology, transforming major businesses or making investment decisions.
One of the things I like most about VDS is that we manage to bring together people who would be unlikely to cross paths in other circumstances. We don’t want every sector to discuss its challenges in isolation. What makes it interesting is bringing together different experiences, knowledge and perspectives.
Sometimes an opportunity emerges when someone discovers how a problem has been solved in another industry, or when a major company comes across a technology it had never considered applying to its own business. That ability to connect different worlds is one of the things that makes VDS special.
7. This year, the Spanish Government declared VDS an Event of Exceptional Public Interest. What does this recognition mean, and what new opportunities does it open up for the future of the project?
It’s a very important recognition because it acknowledges the journey we’ve built over the years and the impact VDS is already having across Spain.
But what interests me most is what we can do with it now.
The designation provides tax incentives for partnerships that meet the established requirements, opening up new opportunities to involve private companies and organisations and build more ambitious, stable, long-term partnerships.
That can help us attract new international partners, strengthen the involvement of major corporations and continue developing VDS.
And there’s something important here. For us, it wouldn’t make much sense to use this recognition simply to organise a bigger international technology event every October.
What really matters is using it to strengthen Valencia’s international relationships, attract new companies and investment, and generate projects that continue throughout the rest of the year.
Of course, we want VDS to keep growing, but above all, we want its contribution to the development of Valencia’s technology industry to become increasingly significant.
8. “GENESIS. Origin of What’s Next” is the theme chosen for VDS 2026. If we look back five years from now, what would need to have happened for you to consider this edition a real turning point?
I’d love for us to look back in five years and be able to point to specific companies, investments and projects and say that an important part of their journey began at VDS 2026.
And we have good reasons to believe that’s possible, because we’ve already seen it happen.
We’ve seen startups meet investors at VDS who later played a fundamental role in their growth, helping them become global companies. We’ve also seen international businesses discover Valencia through VDS and decide to establish themselves here, from a company relocating its headquarters from San Francisco to others opening teams and launching new projects in the city. And investment funds that initially came to attend the event and eventually established a permanent presence in Valencia.
For me, those stories say much more about VDS’s impact than any attendance figure.
That’s precisely what GENESIS is about: beginnings. A technology taking its first steps, two people meeting and deciding to create something together, or a company finding the opportunity it needed to take its next big step.
And it connects perfectly with what we want for Valencia: for more international companies to choose our city to develop their projects, and for businesses founded here to grow into global leaders.
If, five years from now, we can identify new success stories and say, with actual names and examples, that it all started at VDS 2026, we’ll know we’ve done our job well.
Because ultimately, the true legacy of VDS is not just what happens during those two days, but everything that begins because of them.
