Avizorex Pharma, Geoblink, Waynabox, BioNostrum Pest Control, and Proton have won the EntrepreneurXXI Awards, an initiative promoted by ”la Caixa”, through Caixa Capital Risc, and co-awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness, through
Enisa.
The EntrepreneurXXI Awards, which this year have entered into their tenth edition,
have solidified their position as the premier awards for startups in Spain. The purpose of this initiative for promoting the best projects in the country in entrepreneurship is to identify, recognise, and guide the companies with the highest potential for growth in Spain.
The award ceremony, which has been held today in CaixaForum Barcelona, has been presided over by Jaume Giró, General Director of ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation; Marcelino Armenter, General Director of CriteriaCaixa; Juan Antonio Alcaraz, General Director of CaixaBank, and Bruno Fernández, CEO of Enisa.
A total of
545 companies have participated in this edition. The awards have distinguished the best companies in the categories of Life Sciences, Information Technology, Digital Business, Food and Agriculture, and Industrial Technology.
Five sector awards
Avizorex Pharma (Valencian Community), a company that develops new drugs for “dry eye syndrome”, a very common medical issue among the population, has won the award in
Life Sciences, a category in which Enzymlogic and Transplant Biomedicals were finalists.
Geoblink (Madrid), which has created a business intelligence solution directed at companies to help them understand and optimise the design of their physical network of establishments and decide where to open new locations and how to optimise their geomarketing strategy, has been boosted with the award in the field of
Information Technology. The finalists in this category were Kompyte and Signaturit Solutions.
In the sector of
Digital Business, the award has been given to
Waynabox (Valencian Community), which offers youth a new way to travel. For 150 Euro, customers can travel to a surprise destination for a weekend. The finalists were AIS Channel and Lowpost.
The company with the highest potential for growth in the
Food and Agriculture sector was
BioNostrum Pest Control (Valencian Community), a spin-off of the University of Alicante, dedicated to the biological control of pests. The finalists were Agricolum and Sabiotec.
Proton (Proton New Energy Future) (Catalonia), which has developed the first biotechnology-based photovoltaic plate to achieve more than 60% performance on cloudy days, has won the award in the field of
Industrial Technology. AEInnova and Mobile Lean were the finalists in this category.
The winners from each sector have obtained a financial contribution of 25,000 Euro and 6 months of free access to the Peer-to-Peer Advisory Board, monthly meetings directed by a coach, the goal being to guide the CEOs in the definition of the growth strategy for their companies.
They also have access to a guidance programme valued at 25,000 Euro, with activities adapted to their needs and stage of development, along with preferential access to financing from Caixa Capital Risc and Enisa. Furthermore, the three finalists from each sector also have free access to the guidance programme.
Recognition of successful trajectories over the past few years
As part of a new tradition, this year
BMAT and Sanifit received the
award for their successful entrepreneurial trajectory among the winners of the previous editions. On the one hand, BMAT, the Catalonian winner of the EntrepreneurXXI Awards in 2009, provides music monitoring services for radio and television so that music rights management entities can distribute royalties they take in to their legitimate authors. On the other hand, Sanifit, the Balearic winner of the EntrepreneurXXI Awards in 2009, is dedicated to researching experimental drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in patients with severe kidney disease and also develops other drugs for renal diseases or processes related to calcification.
In this edition, two runner-up prizes have been awarded: one to the best technological innovation and the other to the project with the greatest social impact. On the one hand, ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation has awarded the
runner-up prize to the company with the greatest social impact, endowed with 25,000 Euro, to
Discubre (Balearic Islands), which helps people, families, and collectives who have needs for products and services linked to disabilities or functional diversity find solutions in a single place.
On the other hand,
Enzymlogic (Madrid) has been awarded as the
runner-up in innovation, which has been granted by the Israeli Embassy in Spain. This award comes with a one-week training programme in Israel organised by the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, in collaboration with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Enzymlogic is a biotech company that attends to the urgent need from the pharmaceutical and biotech sector to have tools capable of identifying drugs that truly satisfy the needs of the marketplace.
Since its creation in 2007,
4.3 million Euro have been invested in awards and guidance actions, having benefited
289 companies. A total of 5,210 newly created companies have participated in the EntrepreneurXXI Awards.
