Ten years after its first conference, the South Summit continues to go from strength to strength each year, with the startup, corporate and investor community continuing to showcase the benefits of new technologies in an increasingly entrepreneurial world. “This is a grand event of opportunity. Here, start-ups have more access to international investors. Over the past decade, the Southern Summit has become a “unicorn” in terms of impact,” explains Juan José Güemes, president of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center IE University and one of the organizers of the event in the Spanish capital from 8 to 10 June.
“From the start, South Summit has been amazing. Looking back, what Maria Benjumea achieved [fundadora e presidente da Spain Startup] Contributed to transforming Spain’s economy and creating a real entrepreneurial revolution in the country”, he stressed.
Portuguese startups have made history in Madrid’s “La Nave” with ten innovative companies representing the country’s talent and entrepreneurship. Among them, AgriMarketplace takes the form of a trading platform for agricultural products, connecting farmers and industries and facilitating transactions between them.
CBR Genomics has proven to be a startup that brings the latest scientific advances to the clinic by studying genetic information, and has the potential to revolutionize the future of medicine, making it more preventative and accessible.
Mário Grãos, COO of CBR Genomics, explained that it is a “company that provides gene sequencing services in a clinical setting” with the goal of “creating synergies between doctors and people so that they can take care of their health. A preventive and personalized approach”.
“The idea is to sequence the entire exome, the 20,000 genes that make up human genetic information, and then store this data so we can access it for a lifetime,” he stressed.
Emotai also puts health and well-being first with bands that record the brainwaves and heart rate of professional esports athletes, helping them be more productive through workouts that reduce anxiety and burnout.
“We are a team from the Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering, and we have developed a platform and a band that measures brain waves and heart rate. From this, in the world of eSports, we can understand how players feel during a match Provide information to coaches who help them improve. Now, in motorsport, we also offer the same service, always with greater productivity and well-being in mind.
Reatia works by implementing artificial intelligence in the real estate sector. According to founder and CEO Hugo Venâncio, “There is still a problem in the real estate industry, which is the lack of consistency and access to real estate data. Therefore, “Reatia was developed to solve this problem. Provides data, the latest active data on the market in a very easy to consult way. The point is to give customers time and speed up the business.”
Lisbon-based Virtuleap uses new technologies such as virtual reality to help healthcare professionals predict symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer’s through an innovative platform. “Our company is a combination of neuroscience and virtual reality. We created an app with exercises to access memory to solve cognitive problems,” said Amir Bozorgzadeh, CEO and co-founder.
Also relevant to the medical world, the Tonic App is an app created by doctors for doctors that provides useful digital tools to diagnose and treat patients, such as calculators and scales, diagnostic codes, video consultations, conferences and even job openings.
At LOQR, financial institutions are the focus. The startup provides personalised digital solutions through an artificial intelligence platform that banks can use to facilitate tasks such as opening accounts online or updating customer data. “We are a company focused on the banking sector, the driving force behind the digital transformation of these institutions,” said Rui Marques.
Spotlite corresponds to a system that continuously monitors space infrastructure through satellite imagery and allows early detection of problems that may be harmful to environmental health, avoiding damage or major losses. “We monitor critical space infrastructure to identify risks before they become a problem,” said co-founder Ricardo Cabral.
In turn, The Equal Food contributes to food sustainability and prevents food waste by selling and delivering ‘imperfect’ fruit and vegetable baskets from local farmers in Portugal.
Taking a different concept, Infinite Foundry is a platform that replicates a 3D digital factory to improve the efficiency of a company’s operations under a telecommuting regime. Similar to video games, the startup offers a unique work experience from anywhere via a computer.
Highlights of this year’s South Summit also include 15 unicorns (companies valued at over $1 billion), 3,000 startups, more than 650 speakers and 8 stages, including a conversation with Al Gore, former VP of the United States , speeches by the current EU Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, Maria Gabriel, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
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