The startup ecosystem on Majorca
A picturesque old town, an abundance of beaches with crystal clear water and a great climate. Since the article “Best Places to Live in the World: The winner” by the Sunday Times, it is officially confirmed that Majorca is a great place to live, but is it also a great place to start your business? Let’s keep a closer look at the startup ecosystem on Majorca.
As defined in Wikipedia “A startup ecosystem is formed by people, startups in their various stages and various types of organizations in a location (physical or virtual), interacting as a system to create new startup companies. These organizations can be further divided into categories such as universities, funding organizations, support organizations (like incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces etc.), research organizations, service provider organizations (like legal, financial services etc.) and large corporations.”
Our approach is to give a first overview in this post about the pillars administration, funding, education and talent, incubation and coworkings. We will then follow with more detailed articles about all key players in the Mallorca Startup Ecosystem and services supporting the startup ecosystem.
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
PalmaActiva is an agency for the local economic development of Palma. It is a department of the city hall of Palma with the mission to push the socio-economic and commercial development of Palma supporting local entrepreneurs and small and medium-size businesses in the starting or consolidation stage of their projects by offering office spaces (starting from 60 € using their coworking spaces), advanced training and networking events such as NetCity. Furthermore it offers consulting services to entrepreneurs starting their business (lean Canvas to define their business model, creation of a business plan etc.).
It is also hosting several annual competitions such as CODE (development and design of webs, apps, video games), Eureka (Ideas transformed into businesses), Yuzz (competition of TIC startup ideas) and Lanza (Competition for startups showing the implementation of innovative processes, creating jobs or showing the corporate social responsibility of their company).
Joves Empresaris is an NGO with the objective to promote entrepreneurial projects. They represent and defend the interests of the young entrepreneurs of the Balearic Islands with the local administration. Joves Empresaris is an association with more than 200 members from all kind of industrial and service sectors running more than 25 years. Besides advanced training and networkings, it hosts every year the competition for the best young entrepreneur of the Balearic Islands (Premi Joves Emprenedors/Empresaris). Furthermore it organizes each year the networking event Innovem on Menorca to get together the TIC community of the islands.
Cámara Oficial de Comercio, Industria, Servicios y Navegación de Mallorca
The chamber of commerce was created with the objective to promote the economic development of Majorca. This public law corporation represents all different productive sectors of the island and it works as a consulting department of the public administration.
For entrepreneurs the chamber of commerce offers support at the early stage of the creation of the company.
Register the company online
Creation of a business plan
Trademark registration and name of the business
They provide a list of companies registered on the island (providers, competitors, clients)
Networking sessions and advanced training
In further stages of the company development the Chamber of Commerce helps to set up the export of goods and services of Balearic products/services, it is organizing commercial visits of foreign markets and it provides studies of the local market.
The idi is an instrument of the Conselleria de Treball, Comerç i Indústria of the Balearic Islands’ government (Govern Balear).
The idi works as a regional development agency (Agencia de Desarrollo Regional AD) promoting the development of the economic activity of the Balearic Islands applying criteria such as competitiveness, sustainability or sectorial balance. It provides support to startups and small and medium-size businesses.
It offers all kind of services regarding
Trademarks and patents (Information, documentation etc.)
The incubator offers advice and support to the incubated companies in the areas of company creation and consolidation, business and financial management.
Located in a privileged environment due to its location, communications and tranquillity, the Balearic Islands technology park Parc Bit is designed for the development of creative solutions and exchange of knowledge between the more than 130 innovative companies established there.
Furthermore, there is the business incubator center aimed at researchers and entrepreneurs with opportunities to create technology-based companies.
The technology-based business incubator of ParcBIT is managed from the Balearic Foundation of Innovation and Technology and hosts startups in the fields of ICT, tourism, biotechnology, environment, energy and audiovisual.
The business incubator provides:
Encourage of networking and synergies through regularly organized events.
Access to a professional working space.
Advice and support to start-ups and entrepreneurs in company creation and consolidation, business and financial management.
Monitoring and control of hosted startups along their lifecycle.
Advice and support in finding funding, especially in competitive public calls and advice on funding for R+D+i.
Dissemination activities in the media, journals, seminars, meetings, etc.
Also, the ParcBIT Business Incubator leads the detection of digital entrepreneurs, ideas and information capture and application to grants and subsidies support.
Get more info about the ParcBit Incubator here
Mola is an investment fund specializing in technology startup companies at the seed stage.
Mola is an initiative co- founded by Enrique Dubois and Paco Gimena. Mola participated in more than 65 companies, 15 majority and 50 minority, in which it has invested a total of € 20 million in collaboration with other investors. Actually the portfolio is approximately of 40 companies.
It incubates ideas and tries to turn them into profitable businesses using all kinds of resources: work space, technology development, design and marketing, human resources, financial and legal advice, accounting and business development support, and sales.
It also accelerates operational projects through funding, contacts and advice from the best available mentors available with experience and proven success.
It mainly focuses on existing opportunities in Spain and Latin America.
Balearic Investor Club was formed in 2015 by José Antonio Caldés, Antonio Coll and Antonio Porsia, three experienced entrepreneurs and investors. Recognizing the boom in numbers of exciting new start-ups in the Balearic Island and the difficulty to access seed funding, Balearic Investor Club aims to plug this gap through a collaboration of entrepreneurs, investors and service providers active in the Balearic start up community. All of the founders and advisors have been involved in funding, managing, and mentoring new businesses for many years.
Its claim is: We help entrepreneurs raise early stage funding to take their ideas to the next stage of their development.
“The node of InnoBAN in the Balearic Islands was established on March 2016 with a short-term objective for this year: to promote the first BA investment event in Palma, probably by June 2016, in order to foster local entrepreneurship and high added-value startups and sectors.
The node is in ParcBit - the Technological Park of the Balearic Islands - and it’s managed by Mr Miguel Piñol-Alda, a BA himself and tech entrepreneur with several companies in the fields of IT, biotech and consulting.”
Mola Venture Helper and Venture Capital
Apart of being an incubator Mola also does seed investments and accelerates operational projects through funding, contacts and advice from the best available mentors. It also invests in consolidated startups with their venture capital fund.
Programme to create new ventures by the university UIB (Programa de creación de empresas).
It offers the following services:
With this programme the university wants to support all entrepreneurial projects emerging by the students of the UIB.
Advice regarding trademark registration and copyrights
Support in the definition of the business model
Information about funding possibilities
Help creating the business plan
Information about the administrative steps of creating a company
The club of entrepreneurs of the UIB (Club d’Emprenedors de la UIB) was founded as a link between the university and the companies of the Balearic Islands. The objective is to clearly show the path from studying at the UIB to launching their own projects.
Organize startup competitions for the students of the UIB
Coordinate and manage advanced trainings related to entrepreneurship and startups
Show different types of private and public funding for startups
Organise networking events such as the Fira UIBEmprèn
Bigbang Coworking (Palma)
Bedndesk (Palma/S’Arenal)
Incubadora ParcBit (Palma)
Coworking Calle Oms (Palma)
Coworking Calvià (Calvià)
Conclusion: Mallorca might not be Barcelona or Madrid when it comes to startups and infrastructure, but the startup scene is growing on the island and as a consequence complementary services (as coworkings) and funding possibilities (creation of the Balearic Investor Club and InnoBAN on the island) are coming up.
It is obvious that in spite of the existence of some networking events, there is still no real connection between the startups themselves and between startups and funding possibilities (except of selective competitions). Associations such as Joves try to bridge the gap between entrepreneurs and the public administration, but there is still a lot of work to do to clearly identify the needs of the startups of the island and receive the support needed to achieve a solid base for new companies on the island.
Therefore we defined our mission with Mallorca Startups is “Bridging the gap between local and international Entrepreneurs, Startups, Investors, Experts, Advisors and Service Provider in Mallorca (Balearic Islands) and building an environment for an successful mallorca startup ecosystem.”
To achieve it we organized a first event bringing together the Mallorca Startup community on the 12th of May. Register here for the event!
