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First thing in the morning of any given day in Valencia at the end of September. The Mediterranean sun hits the glass of the offices of Lanzadera, Juan Roig's entrepreneur factory . A continuous drip of people passes through the main entrance of the building. Only the views of the La Marina dock give a small truce in this startup center before a new work day.
Together with the EDEM business school and the Angels investment company , the founder of Mercadona created the Marina de Empresas complex in 2015. He recycled three old bases of the Copa América teams and part of the extinct Formula 1 urban circuit, also witnessing the last victories of Fernando Alonso, to set up this great training center. In total, more than 20,000 square meters and 30 million euros invested by the third fortune of Spain to underpin the idea of a Valencia 4.0 .
Through the halls of Lanzadera few comb gray hair. Its high ceilings and open spaces, with the ambience of a large research laboratory, provide shelter for the latest generation of innovative projects in the national market. In the last four years more than 360 companies with potential for success, 30% of them run by women, have passed through these multi-purpose rooms.
The Valencian offices are always open, 24 hours and 365 days a year. It is usual to see the lights of the jobs at dawn or even on holidays when night falls. For some emerging projects of the Roig factory, crucial markets such as the American or the Asian are crucial in their daily cash flow.
According to the study data Informal venture capital in Spain 2019, Lanzadera is the most active investor by number of operations. It advances other firms in the sector such as Wayra (Telefónica) or Impact (ISDI and FundingBox) . In 2018, it made 67 new investments in startups that add up to the 14 million euros allocated in different projects since its birth . In addition, it obtained for these companies in the take-off phase more than 30 million euros of external financing .
"There is little talk in the media, but the talent of the people who appear in each call is impressive," says the general director of Lanzadera, Javier Jiménez.
Signatures such as: Codigames, specialized in mobile games, have made their way through this same investment path; Vivood, the first landscape hotel; Waynabox, a surprise travel platform; Singularu, manufacturers of trend jewelry or Geoblink that uses artificial intelligence and geolocation to organize companies internally. A project that the Bloomberg TV network recognized in 2017 as one of the 50 most promising startups in the market.
A whole amalgam of companies without a dominant specialization , perhaps still by the youth of Lanzadera. "Many criticisms may be right, we are one more startup. We go around a lot to find our way. There are things that have worked and others have not. We are embroidering, like boats, but always moving towards the goal: create companies, "adds the Valencian director.
Jiménez arrived at this hotbed of companies directly from the linear lines of the supermarket chain in 2013. A management strategy that years ago was common in other projects of the Roig family such as Valencia Basket, champion of the ACB League 2017, or in the Trinidad Alfonso and Hortensia Herrero foundations that promote all kinds of sports and cultural projects. However, now this rule is no longer a preferred issue in the family holding .
" In Lanzadera there are four people on staff who are former CEOs of old startups. We want their experience to accompany the small businesses that come to be bigger," Jiménez emphasizes. But, what new companies are those that begin to emerge now in the Valencian base?
Kento, the 'take away' of Japanese food
A trip to London in 2017 caused Eduardo Hijlkema to bet on the take away sale with Japanese food. Without previous experience in the hospitality sector, this entrepreneur launched himself directly to fulfill his dream when he returned to Valencia. Since then, the young company is going through its fifth point of sale in the Valencian capital, with a turnover of 40,000 euros per month per store, and more than 30 people on staff. "We look for points where there are nearby offices or schools for our stores. We offer the best food on the market made by Japanese chefs," says Hijlkema.
Also invested by Angels Capital since 2018, there is the circumstance that this business directly rivals Mercadona's own oriental food line . "When I met your bet I thought that Japanese food would be a good opportunity. From them I am learning all the management of the points of sale: camera control, organization, human resources, ... many things. We differentiate ourselves in the variety of products and that in our store everything is prepared the same day, "he adds.
Kento points of sale are open every day of the week from 11 am to 11 pm. With a very careful design of the facilities, the work of the Masqueespacio studio , they also have an area to eat on site in each establishment. "Until now we had no coffee service, but the usual clientele asked for it and we have created a basic offer," says its founder.
Kento currently prepares a distribution network with ecological transport and closed hours for work centers and individuals who are further away from their stores.
Nibus: the automated 'Thermomix' for pets
Shuttle also has several programs with corporates such as Volkswagen, Airbus or Playstation. However, the last bet with the Purina firm stands out in a special way. The young firm Kibus proposes an automated kitchen robot that prepares pet food . "More and more owners see their pets as a family member and try to give them the best possible nutrition, healthy and little processed," says Albert Icart, founder of the company with Marta Arisa and Albert Homs.
Based in the municipality of Igualada (Barcelona), although since May they also have an office in the Valencian accelerator, their technological development program was carried out at the Brinc center in Hong Kong (China). They plan to launch a first pet kitchen machine at the end of the year for 199 euros (includes a pre-launch discount). Food cartridges, in the style of coffee makers or printers, will have an estimated value of one euro per unit.
Airhopping: cheaper and more stopover trips
If in the 70s the first Interrail tickets changed the way of traveling by train of the youngest, today the algorithm designed by Airhopping opens a new opportunity for low cost travel. The proposal of Carlos Montesinos and his computer partner Gonzalo Ortega allows up to four stops during vacation days at the same cost of booking a single destination.
The trick, to put it in some way, is in the monitoring they have done to 30,000 flights in 40 cities and in the selection of the order of the flights . "The savings that we can generate is 70% since searching on your own or individually you can find very expensive combinations with the same destinations," said Montesinos who changed the public university in first year to the EDEM school to Know your entrepreneurship programs.
Since they formalized the project in 2016, they have gone through all of Lanzadera's incubation programs until last winter Angels Capital entered into its shareholding. Airhopping generated more than 20,000 reservations in 2018, a figure that it expects to double throughout the present campaign.
Mat Map: a marketplace for the brick industry
The construction sector has always had an important presence in the GDP reports of the Spanish economy. Now its scant digitization opens the door to new business opportunities. This is the case of the founders of Mat Map. María Martínez, training architect, and her partner Marc Alemany have created a marketplace that links the commercialization of leftover and ecological materials, coming from demolition, with professionals from the sector who carry out customized works. "There are products that save up to 60%, although the average is 30% . We currently work with fifty suppliers throughout Spain that give us guarantee and security for marketing," said María Martínez.
In just over a year Mat Map, which currently has a staff of five people, has billed 200,000 euros . Its scalability is constant thanks to the niche market it has found. They have almost no competition in the national market and have also managed to differentiate themselves from the offer of other international websites based in the Netherlands and Italy.
Zeleros, the unicorrnio covered by 2025
One of the projects that you know best in Lanzadera is the Zeleros firm . They have gone through all training programs since 2017 until they reach an investment plan in Angels Capital with their hyperloop transportation project . A supersonic train concept (up to 1,000 km / h) that will be channeled in an airtight tube by magnetic levitation. "We estimate a period of 4 or 5 years to begin the first tests with professional cargo , and about 10 years for passenger transport. We want to make a high-speed subway network between capitals," says its CEO, David Pistioni.
Around the world there are only six companies that are developing this exclusive transport technology waiting for a specific security regulation by the European Union. "We started seven people and now we are 37 workers. Then we were a very technical team, but in Lanzadera we have learned to manage the project as a company," adds Pistioni, who shares the company's management with Daniel Orient and Juan Vicèn.
When they were still students of the Polytechnic of Valencia, the three young engineers won the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition 2015 global competition sponsored by Tesla founder Elon Musk , to encourage the development of this type of supersonic transport. And now, four years later, Zeleros has just closed a round of financing of 5 million euros that allows them to move forward firmly in their project. In fact, next year they will test the first units on a two-kilometer track at the Parc Sagunt (Valencia).
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