The Spanish Ecosystem Report, a report prepared by global data platform Dealroom.co, in collaboration with fund managers Kfund, BBVA Spark, Endeavor Spain and GoHub Ventures, yields very positive data on the evolution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spain.

The first is the tremendous growth it has experienced in recent years. The national startup ecosystem reaches a business value of 93,000 million euros in 2022, which is an increase of 7,000 million compared to 2021 and 3.6 times higher than the value registered in 2018, before the outbreak of the pandemic, when it was 26,000 million euros.

According to the report, this growth has been mainly driven by the emergence of four new unicorns last year, Factorial, Fever, Domestica and TravelPerk, which have achieved a valuation of over 1,000 million euros and which are “making a relevant impact in the industries in which they are located, such as human resources, technology for events, education or travel and tourism,” he said.

In addition, Spain has had the second best year for VC investment with €4 billion raised in 2022, demonstrating greater resilience than its global peers, with VC investment down just 15% since 2021 when the best exercise in history was recorded. Thus, in other countries such as the UK, the decline in venture capital investment in 2022 is 25%; United States, 33% or Germany, 44%. At this point, Spain ranks as the sixth country in Europe and sixteenth worldwide in terms of total investment achieved in 2022.

The report also highlights that investment in the early and intermediate phases has grown steadily in Spain, reaching a record high of 1,800 million euros in 2022, one billion more than the figure recorded in 2021. In this sense, it also points out that in Spain, more than five thousand seed rounds have been raised since 2017, with 2021 being a record year in terms of the number of seed rounds raised, with over a thousand rounds raised. Additionally, the report details that national and European sources account for an average of more than 60% of initial financing rounds in Spain since 2017.

With respect to Latin America, by 2022 three of the top ten recipients of Spanish investment in venture capital will be Latin American countries. Thus, Spanish investors have invested in a total of 141 rounds in Latin American startups. Seaya and Wayra stand out as two Spanish investors particularly active in investing in start-ups and scaling companies based in the region.

Eleven megaroutes in 2022
In 2022, the historical maximum of mega-turnovers of over 100 million euros has also been reached which the Spanish company managed to raise, a total of 11 mega-turns, which is a larger amount than the combined registered between 2020 and 2021.

Thus, the main mega round in Spain has been snatched by Seedtag (250 million euros), Fever (206 million), Paack (200 million), Typeform (122 million), Impress (113 million), Factorial (109 million), Perk Journey (101 million), Civitatis (100 million) and Domestic (100 million).