EIF IN
SPAIN
Investing in the future of Spanish SMEs
Small and medium-size enterprises are the heart of the Spanish economy.
Representing 99% of all businesses and more than two thirds of the workforce, Spain's 2,548,000 SMEs are responsible for driving innovation as well as spurring on growth, and their daily routine is what ensures the competitiveness of the Spanish economy. But to do that, they often need finance.
At the same time, as the smallest actors in the economy, they are often the hardest hit when the economy encounters turbulence, which is why it is so crucial for them to have financial options in order to maintain and eventually grow their businesses.
At the EIF, our mission is to improve access to finance for small businesses across the EU. In Spain, we have been supporting SMEs using a broad range of instruments, including many tailored to the needs of the Spanish market and designed with the Spanish government and local authorities.
As a result, we've been able to support more than 350,000 Spanish businesses, ranging from companies developing sustainable dyes, cooling solutions for data centres, and socially inclusive customised children's books, making sure they have the financial fuel they need to pursue their ambitions.
Our intention is to continue to extend this type of support to the Spanish market, making access to finance easier as we collectively move towards a greener, digital and more inclusive Europe.
Success stories
Nextil
Success stories
Nextil
“Sustainability today is a must—social as much as environmental,” says Manuel Martos, CEO of Nextil Group. Based in Madrid, but with production facilities in the US, Portugal, and Guatemala, Nextil Group is a big player in the textile industry, offering a broad range of products within five different divisions (luxury, sports, intimate, swimwear and, medical) and services (textile production, garment manufacturing and sustainable dyeing). Recently, the company has decided to tackle its carbon footprint head-on.
The company offers a new sustainable dye solution that uses no chemicals, and significantly decreases the use of water and energy since everything happens at 25 degrees. “Now we are saving 80% on energy, 77% on water use, and adding literally no chemicals. And it can all be done in less than an hour,” he adds. “The savings in water usage alone could provide drinking water for 90m people.”
Victoria Marmili
“With front-end developing, you have to be flexible, to think like the user, who is human, but also connect to the back-end which is code,” says Victoria Marmili, an Italian national originally from Argentina but currently living in Malaga, Spain, where she changed careers, launching into the world of coding. After moving to Spain with her husband, she seized the opportunity to take a course in front-end developing.
It turned out to be a fortuitous decision. Three days before finishing the course, Victoria got a job in a consultancy, and she has since moved on, now working with Twenix. “There’s huge demand for these skills,” she adds, “and COVID really stressed the importance of the digital sphere, the web, the cloud for sales and business continuity.”
LeanXcale
“It took more than nine months research to produce the first version of the algorithm, but the results were beautiful and elegant—the perfect solution for the biggest and most problematic bottleneck in database management,” says Dr. Ricardo Jimenez-Peris, CEO and founder of LeanXcale. Ricardo and his team now offer database management solutions with the potential to become a global leader.
Although a Professor in computer science at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ricardo took the big step of abandoning his academic career to launch a start-up company in 2015. In 2017, LeanXcale was selected by Red Herring as one of the top 100 European start-ups of the year and was awarded as the “Best Young SME” by the Innovation Radar of the European Commision that recognizes the most innovative startup of the year.
Submer
“With the exponential increase of power density in recent and future server chip models, it’s impossible to continue with air-cooling”, explains Gloria Fluxà, Submer Marketing Director. “We need solutions that offer multiple benefits in terms of cost, power, maintenance, space, resources - datacentres that make sense, and that are sustainable in every way.”
Submer provides bespoke solutions for datacentres, which need more powerful and efficient cooling systems. Their active single-phase immersion cooling system helps users save space and energy, and increase compute capacity. But Submer also focuses on other aspects of datacenter infrastructure, like zero water waste or heat re-use (i.e., redirecting heat capture to heat homes and buildings, a city grid or local heat transference). “Overall, we provide efficient and sustainable cooling by using planet-friendly chemicals, innovative hardware and software, and much more.”
Biofor
Historically, Soria has been one of Spain’s least populated areas, with relatively low economic productivity, but companies such as Biofor are leading revitalising efforts. The company specialises in chips of recycled forest wood. Biofor mixes wood that does not meet the conditions for the sawmill industry with wood from tree trimming, obtaining forest biofuel for industrial boilers. At the same time, recycled forest chips from pallets and packaging are given a second life to produce chipboard or for use in high-powered thermal systems.
The process is simple, but the impact is huge. “This biofuel is used in industrial boilers, mostly by manufacturing companies as well as the agro-food industry, hospitals, and care homes for the elderly.” Soria is also one of the Spanish ‘capitals’ of cured meat. “Our biggest clients are two main actors in the production of jamón - the pig farms and feed producers,” adds Roberto. “We’re very happy to be supporting traditional local industries.”
MiCuento
“Stories and education can change the world,” says Muriel Bourgeois, co-founder of MiCuento, a company based in Barcelona that makes personalised children’s books. “I love to tell stories and to listen. That’s really where you realise that stories are so much better when you personalise them.”
MiCuento publishes story books on demand and has a library of around 40 titles, with clients able to personalise the story with their children’s names. “There are literally millions of possible combinations for every title, and the children and their friends and family become the protagonists of the story.” The company even caters to special requests, such as adapting a text for kids with dyslexia or using braille. “When was the last time you read a children’s story with a kid in a wheelchair? One mother once told me that her child doesn’t feel disheartened any more looking at a book. That’s a huge motivation for us to continue.”
Key figures
Over
of EIF financing
Transactions with financial intermediaries
Equity investments since inception
Guarantees support since inception
made available for
Spanish businesses
Mandates in focus
InvestEU
The InvestEU programme provides the EU with crucial long-term funding by leveraging substantial private and public funds in support of a sustainable recovery. It is helping to mobilise private investments for the EU's policy priorities, such as the European Green Deal and the digital transition. The InvestEU Programme brings together under one roof the multitude of EU financial instruments previously available to support investment in the EU, making funding for investment projects in Europe simpler, more efficient and more flexible. The programme consists of three components: the InvestEU Fund, the InvestEU Advisory Hub and the InvestEU Portal. The InvestEU Fund is implemented through financial partners that will invest in projects using the EU budget guarantee of €26.2 billion. The entire budget guarantee will back the investment projects of the implementing partners, increase their risk-bearing capacity and thus mobilise at least €372 billion in additional investment.
EIF-NPI Equity Platform
The EIF-NPI Equity Platform is a collaborative initiative launched by the EIF in 2016, which promotes knowledge sharing and best practices between the EIF and national promotional institutions (NPIs) or banks (NPBs) across EU Member States. Its goal is to enhance access to funding for SMEs and midcaps, support the defragmentation of equity markets, and match national, EU and private sources of funding. This initiative has guided the EIF and NPIs in implementing equity investments, including EFSI-related activities.
European Angels Funds - Spain
European Angels Fund – Fondo Isabel La Católica (EAF Spain I) is a €30m initiative funded by the EIF, Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) and Neotec set up to provide equity to Business Angels and other non-institutional investors for the financing of innovative companies in the form of co-investments. By the end of 2022 more than EUR 23m have been committed into 13 vehicles managed by different Business Angels in Spain. In 2019, its successor, EAF Spain II was launched: a €40m fund for financing innovative start-ups. The fund is owned 50% by the EIF and 50% by AXIS, via Fond-ICOpyme, and forms part of the pan-European European Angels Fund (EAF) initiative.
FITA
FITA is a dedicated fund targeting technology transfer (TT) investments in Catalonia. The €30m mandate, launched in 2022 in partnership with Institut Català de Finances (ICF), aims to improve the availability of finance for TT projects through very early-stage equity and equity type investments aimed at commercialising the research output of local universities, ultimately to help develop and expand companies of economic relevance for Catalonia.
NEOTEC
Neotec Capital Riesgo is a Spanish-based €183m ‘Fund of Funds’ launched by the EIF in cooperation with the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI: Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial), the tech transfer office of the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and several other private investors, mainly Spanish blue-chip companies. Final closing was in June 2006 at EUR 183m, to which the EIF committed EUR 50m. Neotec has supported 14 venture capital funds that are based, or mainly active, in Spain – therefore acting as a catalyst for the development of the venture capital market in the country and boosting investment in innovative Spanish SMEs.
ETCI
The European Tech Champions Initiative was launched in February 2023 with EIB Group resources alongside contributions from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and hopefully soon, also other EU Member States. Managed by the EIF, this is the first of its kind growth stage fund-of-funds in Europe, with and endowment of €3.75bn of capital to tackle the European scale-up gap.
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