Fundación LAB Mediterráneo promotes alliances between large corporations and startups at its 3rd meeting

Valencia, 24 May 2024.- Fundación LAB Mediterráneo, a project promoted by the Employers’ Association of Valencia (AVE), held its 3rd Meeting today, Friday,  24 May, in Innsomnia, connecting large corporations and startups, and at which experts in the field analysed the challenges and opportunities  offered by these synergies. 

The welcome was given by the president of Fundación LAB Mediterráneo, Héctor Dominguis, who spoke of the importance of these events: “we wish to create a space to promote collaboration between both business realities, convinced as we are that, most of the time, innovation  arises from cooperation”. 

The opening of the meeting was followed by a dialogue on open innovation: learnings from a startup, between Raúl Martín, Corporate General Manager of the Martínez Family and CEO of KM ZERO, who defined startups as “an example of real economy based on innovation”, and Sergio Aguado, cofounder and CEO of Cuatroochenta who clarified that “we have never considered ourselves a startup. We were considered as such because of our great capacity for growth , but we have always played safe”. Moreover, he added that “6 or 7 years into the business, in 2018, we decided to grow inorganically by acquiring and integrating other strong companies”. 

Then, Marta Bertomeu, head of Innovation and CSR of Helados Estiu, Pablo Fernández, Director of Technology and Innovation at Baleària, and Mary Carmen Vidal, Group R&D Product Development Manager of the Dacsa Group, took part in a round table entitled “Collaborate to innovate: the vision of the Corporates” moderated by Juan Enrique Valero, director of the Centro DayOne Valencian Community and Region of Murcia who  pointed out that “companies will need to be technological in order to exist”. 

According to Marta Bertomeu, «for us, this collaboration helps provide fresh solutions without losing focus on our main objective”. 

Pablo Fernández added that “in a process of open innovation, the benefits do not need to be solely for the company or business but also for the workers, who receive a push externally ensuring they are in tune with what is going on outside the company. It provides greater motivation for the team, which can see how things are done elsewhere and allows them to see the sector in a different way.” 

On the other hand, Mary Carmen Vidal wished to clarify that «when you need to be agile in the market  in order to stay competitive, innovation is essential. For many years now, we have been committed to open innovation, integrating freshness and agility through a variety of tools, among them, participating with startups”. 

During the second part of the session, Miguel Borrás, Antara’s CEO, and Yoko Tamura, UBE Corporation Europe, S.A.U Strategy & Business Development, shared their opinions and experience, in a round table on the role of investors and Family Office in innovation through startups: UBE and Antara, a success story, moderated by Darío Olivares, corporate of Lanzadera. 

Antara’ CEO highlighted the fact that “the startup has to manage to reduce the sense of risk in the contact person in the large corporation and help them sell the product to their company. This effort to reduce the perception of risk is greater in Spain than in other countries”. 

Tamura spoke of the process of introducing  a startup in UBE Corporate Europe “when we are presented with a startup, the internal process is as follows: we carry out a detailed analysis, we try to understand it and we discuss the needs for reaching a solution”.

This was immediately followed by a pitch session of startups, led by Ángel Buigues, Bstartup Advisor of Banco Sabadell, at which Pablo Valverde (Crowmie), Juanjo Torres (Dryfing), Luis Fernández (Elevatorfy), Ricardo García (FlipFlow), Santiago Jiménez (Liight), Kilian Zaragozá (Naria), Pepe Tatay (Tweenvest) and Amado Villar (Xnova) presented their respective projects and the opportunities for collaboration with companies.

Fundación LAB Mediterráneo