María Benjumea to take South Summit to Asia and the USA after the success of the second edition in Brazil
Madrid, 27th of April 2023. Innovation has no borders and South Summit, co-organised by IE University, is a great example of this. More than 32,000 startups from 175 different countries, 7 of them unicorns, have passed through its ten editions, generating more than 10.19 billion in revenue and nearly 48,000 jobs. With these excellent figures, and after the good experience of South Summit in Brazil in its second edition, María Benjumea, president and founder of South Summit, has announced that the next objective of South Summit will be its international expansion to Asia and the United States.
At the presentation ceremony of South Summit Madrid 2023, held today in Madrid, María Benjumea stated that “from the very beginning of South Summit, our idea was to change mentalities in order to go global. The world has no borders, and our commitment has always been collaboration and innovation in a global context. We are convinced that there is nothing better than connecting regions and taking innovation from Spain to new places”.
Benjumea also emphasised during the event that “South Summit will always be the place where we find business opportunities for all the players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, but always from a human and global point of view”. She referred to ‘Today 2030’, the slogan that will open the next edition of South Summit Madrid 2023, as “taking care of the planet is fundamental and we have many challenges ahead of us to achieve it, but there are also many opportunities that the objectives of the 2030 Agenda bring”.
The president and founder of South Summit also wanted to applaud the consensus with which the Startups Law has been approved, a regulation that “is already becoming an international benchmark. A catalyst for companies, a great mechanism for attracting talent and investment”.
With these objectives, South Summit reaffirms itself as a global benchmark for startups, investors and other players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. While the value of the global entrepreneurial ecosystem as a whole has decreased by 2.3% in 2022, the Spanish ecosystem has not only resisted, but has increased its value by 8.6%, reaching 93,000 million dollars in 2022, as explained by Alberto Tornero and Jordi Esteve, partners at PwC Spain in the presentation of their report ‘The socio-economic contribution of South Summit in Spain’.
The good figures for Spanish startups are also reflected in their number and employability. Specifically, in 2022 the entrepreneurial ecosystem in our country was made up of 12,041 startups (8% more than in 2021), which employ nearly 160,000 people (+14%). With all this, Spain remains the fourth European country with the highest number of startups, only surpassed by the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
The Vice President of IE University, Juan José Güemes, insisted that “South Summit 2023 will generate an economic activity of around 30 million euros. The data from the study shows us the opportunity for growth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in its quest to attract talent and generate wealth and employment.”
