Twelve o’clock Business Spain has so far achieved status from ‘Unicorn’. This term, once applied to tech giants like Airbnb, defines unlisted companies that have achieved a valuation of more than $1 billion. And the book “Superfounders of the great spanish unicorns” describes how these twelve people turned into start become a leading company in its field.

“There is no common point of business, even though it is in it founding fathers: do your own project”, says Manuel López Torrents, author of ‘Superfounders’. in the book, Lopez Torrents reviews the history of these companies until reach ‘unicorn’ status. The twelve companies are Fever, Travelperk, Másmovil, Wallbox, eDreams, Idealista, Cabify, GlovoFlywire, Jobandtalent, Domestic and Devo.

Published in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, the term ‘unicorn’ at the time defined the kind of hard-to-find startup like the mythological creature. However, as of October 2022 there are over 1,200 that have reached that level, which is why the word ‘unicorn’ is becoming a bit obsolete. López Torrents, an economic journalist in Spain with a long career, sees some of the advantages of being a ‘unicorn’ as it generates “lots of headlines and attention”, but warns that this is no guarantee of future success.

“A person can be very good from 0 to 50, but not so good from 50 to 500,” he warns. In that case, he explained that it was normal once the ‘unicorn’ level had been reached many founders
they leave the company because they enjoy the process of generating value, but it is not part of managing size. “That a company grows a lot in a short period of time is almost always good, but the next challenge is become a ‘dragon’: a company capable of offering solid returns, with clear revenues, business models, capacity for innovation and job creation”, comments López Torrents, who currently leads the Investment Strategy website.

There are more than 1,200 ‘unicorns’, but only 12 have been created in Spain or directed by
founder of spain. This means that 1% of all super startups have some sort of
relations with Spain, something López Torrents is not surprising because, in his opinion,
tech companies find no advantage to being Spanish. “Although Spain has always been a country of almost inexplicable flashes of talent, there’s a lot to go to Silicon hillEnglish or Dutchcommented the expert.

This march of entrepreneurs to other latitudes is due to lack of public support and
private company for entrepreneurship. “Of the twelve companies I talked about at Superfounders, Ibex support barely shows up for one: Wallbox. Iberdrola owns 15% and Santander finances it. But little else,” said López Torrents, who works for El Confidencial and Vozpópuli.