By 2030, cities will be home to more than two thirds of the world’s population. The concept of a ‘city’ is changing meaning and the model that gathers the greatest consensus is the one that puts emphasis on innovation, sustainability and wellbeing: three powerful magnets to attract talent that are a must for any city aspiring to become a renowned entrepreneurial hub and are very present in Valencia’s value proposition to be one of the best cities in the world for entrepreneurship, if not the best.
Why Valencia is already a top destination for startups and talent
The shock of the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated trends that today are the norm, such as remote working. However, if there is one thing that the health crisis has really brought to light and is especially visible in the startup world, it is that talent seeks flexibility, opportunities and a good quality of life. This context represents a historic opportunity for Valencia and the Valencian Community in its plan to consolidate itself as an internationally recognised tech and innovation ecosystem. “We have all the ingredients,” wrote Nacho Mas (CEO of Startup Valencia) recently in Levante-EMV.
The most crucial of all is talent, there is no doubt about it. If we look more to the west, where most of the trends that end up being passed on to the rest of the world are started, Silicon Valley is immersed in what has been dubbed ‘The Great Resignation‘. This mass and voluntary exodus of professionals resigning from their jobs is indicative of a paradigm shift.
A LinkedIn survey sought to find the causes of this unprecedented renunciation and the results were overwhelming: three out of four respondents acknowledged that they were rethinking their work life because of the lockdown, with stress and burnout serving as a backdrop. Talent, from now on, will be concentrated where there is flexibility, good work-life balance and good quality of life, because it is also mobile, ready to take risks and willing to change scenery.
Undoubtedly, it is time to open the doors wide to those who are not here and to motivate and activate those who are already here to start up new business initiatives.
A city with unbeatable quality of life seeks talent
Valencia‘s value proposition in terms of quality of life is probably the best known side of the ecosystem. The city has been chosen two years in a row as the ‘World’s Healthiest City’ for a variety of factors such as the life expectancy of its inhabitants, healthcare costs, low air pollution, safety, average temperature and hours of sunlight. Moreover, there is a will to go further in this regard with the entry into the European network of climate-neutral cities.
In this search for a better quality of life, aspects such as leisure, culture, gastronomy, nature and sport are also relevant. The fact that the city welcomes tourists all year round allows it to show a more relaxed side that appeals to the basic human pleasures and serves as a gateway for talent to discover it.
With this magnetism, the more than 3,500 engineers and developers who graduate each year from Valencian universities will be joined by foreign talent at the ecosystem’s disposal.
Talent in search for opportunities to develop
Attracting talent is one of the ingredients, but not the only one. There is little point in attracting talent if it is not offered a network that allows it to develop. To this end, it is essential to have:
- Community. A dynamic catalogue of events and spaces in which to encourage networking and help talent find itself. In addition to this, an international mindset that facilitates integration, or as Eloi Gómez (Jeff) would say: “Let the city breathe more English”.
- Knowledge. Training programs that allow talent to learn and improve with the help of professors, researchers, and mentors. This applies not only to universities, but also business schools, accelerators, incubators, bootcamps, etc.
- Companies. A wide and varied pool of companies that represent an opportunity both for talent that decides to start a business and for talent that seeks to develop a professional career.
Valencia, as the third tech hub in Spain and boasting €600 million in investment rounds in the last five years as well as the first Spanish listed company on the Nasdaq, can lay claim to these ingredients.
Where there is talent there is money; the corporate world and venture capital are increasing their presence in the city and exploring alliances with the entrepreneurial ecosystem, making Valencia the leading ecosystem in terms of quality and number of open innovation programmes between corporates and startups.
Proof of this are programmes such as Global Omnium’s GoHub for open innovation in deep tech, Plug and Play Tech Center as an open innovation platform with its European back office in Valencia, PlayStation with Lanzadera, and CaixaBank with Innsomnia. On top of these are several initiatives with important links to Valencian startups such as Wayra, Telefónica’s open innovation programme, Elewit as a technological and innovative platform of the Red Eléctrica Group, Decathlon Open Innovation and its ‘Supported by Decathlon’ programme aimed at sports tech, retail tech and data tech startups applied to the sports industry, Banco Sabadell’s BStartup with its open and collaborative innovation model, and all that is to come with the Volkswagen gigafactory for the development of electric batteries and the high level of specialisation in verticals such as health, mobility, fintech, and water; all of which were recently echoed in the magazine ‘Emprendedores’.
The numbers paint the picture described above. The volume of scaleups in Valencia is evidence of its maturity, as is the consolidation of tech events such as Valencia Digital Summit. So this year its fifth edition in the City of Arts and Sciences, or the association itself, with more than 300 members and 25 partners.
As an example, Valencia will be one of the stops made by YCombinator – the most prestigious accelerator in the world – on its tour of Europe. Also, if we look at some of the latest rounds of local startups, we see figures such as Internxt’s €40M, Sesame’s €10M or ClimateTrade’s €7M. The opening of the old maritime station in 2023 will provide an even bigger boost to the ecosystem.
To sum it up, as the manuals on presentations dictate, and borrowing the metaphor of Caroline Lagergren (ExpandToSpain.com): Valencia is an unsurpassable base camp for entrepreneurial talent looking for good quality of life and career development opportunities.
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