Valencia Digital Summit 2023 has announced the winners of its international startup competition. The victorious startups are Ender Turing, in the Seed category, and Cafler, in the Growth category.
Ender Turing (Estonia) helps call centers accelerate quality control, provide agent guidance, and enhance customer satisfaction. On the other hand, the Spanish company Cafler is a marketplace where professional drivers perform various tasks related to your car on your behalf.
The award-winning startups have received various prizes, including an exhibition space for the 2024 edition of Valencia Digital Summit. They will also benefit from networking opportunities and business promotion that an international event like VDS provides.
A jury composed of high-level investors and leaders from international corporations, including Rosa Sánchez, Head of Startups in Territorial Valencia at Banco Santander; Juan Luis Hortelano, President of Startup Valencia; Marta Cruz, Managing Partner at NXTP Ventures; Stefano Guidotti, Partner at P101; and Yolanda Tomas, Board Member of BIGBAN, was responsible for selecting the winners. The other 10 finalists included Quantic Brains, Autoscriber, Legitify, Spendbase, Welii, Zim Connections, Beynex, and Bridgewise.
Among the 10 finalists in the international startup competition of VDS2023, there is a strong international presence, with only two Spanish startups (Cafler -Barcelona- and Quantic Brains -Madrid-), as opposed to six European startups (Autoscriber -Netherlands-, Legitify -Ireland-, Ender Turing -Estonia-, Spendbase -Ukraine-, Welii -France-, and Zim Connections -England-), one from Turkey (Beynex), and one from Israel (Bridgewise).
These innovative and tech-driven companies were selected from an initial pool of 50 startups from over 600 applications submitted from 48 different countries.
Among the Top 50, which also had a presence at VDS2023, 71% of the selected startups originated from outside of Spain. Specifically, only 14 of the selected startups are Spanish.
The countries providing the most finalists are the United States, with 12% of the startups, followed by the UK and France, each contributing 8%. Meanwhile, 6% of the finalists come from Latin America. In total, the competition received over 600 applications from 48 different countries.
During the closing ceremony, the winners of its international startup competition were granted the honorary VDS2023 award by the scientist Pilar Mateo in recognition of her inspirational character and professional career.
Winners of The Challenge
The winners of The Challenge, a project organized by the UPV and Startup Valencia in collaboration with HP, the Valencia City Council, Valencia Activa, and VLC Tech City, and produced by Curiosibot, were also announced. The project aimed to enable participants to develop their skills through challenges presented in a hackathon format with the presentation of a product or service based on innovation that offers solutions to current issues.
Innova Metrics was named the winning project, with Connecting Startup VLC and Ecovolt Sensor as finalists. Paula Llobet, Councilor for Tourism, Innovation, Employment, and Entrepreneurship at the Valencia City Council; Juan José Cortés Vélez, General Director of Innovation at the Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Commerce, and Tourism; and Pilar Bernabé, Government Delegate in the Valencian Community, presented the respective awards.
EBHealth3 was also recognized as the best startup in Health & Wellbeing by the Generalitat Valenciana, and Medcom received the Motivem Winner award, supported by the Universitat de València and the Generalitat Valenciana, with the backing of the “la Caixa” Foundation through CaixaBank.
Pilar Bernabé, Government Delegate in the Valencian Community, emphasized during her closing speech that Valencia Digital Summit has transformed Valencia into a thriving global hub for startups, making it “a national event.”
An Investment Portfolio of Over 8 Billion Euros
The sixth edition of Valencia Digital Summit featured over 400 international investors with an investment portfolio of more than 8 billion euros. The program included over 500 internationally renowned speakers and brought together more than 1,500 startups.
This international tech event had the support of organizations such as Banco Santander, HP, Damm, Opentop, EY, AVIA, DreamHack, Elewit, Wayra, Burda Principal Investments, Agencia Argentina de Inversiones y Comercio Internacional, Mobility Innovation Valencia, Banco Sabadell, CaixaBank DayOne, ADEIT, GoHub Ventures, Dinapsis, and IPG Mediabrands, with the backing of the Spanish Government, Spain Up Nation, EOI, Generalitat Valenciana, Valencia City Council, Valencia Activa, Las Naves, Parc Científic UV, and IVF. VDS2023 was funded by the European Union through the NextGeneration EU funds.
Throughout the week, VDS2023 turned the city into a global hub of innovation, positioning the Valencian ecosystem on the global stage and showcasing prominent startups from the region, including Igenomix, PLD Space, Zeleros, Voicemod, Quibim, Internxt, Sesame, Sales Layer, ARTHEx Biotech, and Fourvenues, among others.
This international gathering has experienced exponential growth. Since its first edition in 2018, attendance has increased by 1,500%, contributing to the consolidation of the Valencian innovative and tech ecosystem as the third-largest in Spain in terms of investment volume, with over 1,200 startups and more than 700 million euros invested in them in recent years.
