Finalist

Entrepreneurial University of the Year Award

Universitat Politècnica de València

Finalist of the Entrepreneurial University of the Year Award

"Transforming ideas into high-impact startups since 1992"


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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/IDEASUPVesp (UPV entrepreneurship area's account.)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBNr_rhA-6i7M2-X42ZfEHg (UPV entrepreneurial ecosystem's account.)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/UPV (Polythecnic University of Valencia’s account)

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Summary

The Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) in Spain established IDEASUPV in 1992 as the first service to support and foster university entrepreneurship in a Spanish university. The mission of IDEAS UPV is to promote the entrepreneurial culture at the UPV, and to raise awareness and motivate the university community in the creation of new entrepreneurial projects, especially in the creation and development of innovative and technology-based companies. Since 1992, IDEASUPV has advised more than 8,350 entrepreneurs and 6,077 entrepreneurial projects. IDEASUPV has promoted the creation of almost 1000 companies including 28 UPV spinoffs with a global survival rate of 66.4%. Since 2012 more than 200 startups have been incubated in the university campus a the StartUPV ecosystem. In the last 7 years, 11,500 students have been reached with approximately 5,000 hours of entrepreneurial trainings. The UPV startups have raised more than 500M€ in the last 7 years in private investing rounds. The UPV was awarded by the EU with the European Entrepreneurship Promotion Award in 2009. The UPV also contributed to obtaining the label of Entrepreneurial European Region for Valencia in 2015. At an international level, the UPV has participated in numerous international entrepreneurship projects to facilitate the exchange of new knowledge, enabling professors to teach transdisciplinary studies through innovative methods and stimulate synergies between universities and entrepreneurial support systems worldwide. The UPV plays a very important role within its regional entrepreneurial ecosystem. Moreover, the UPV actively works with private corporates and has created 73 business chairs with them.

Key People


Rector D. Jose Esteban Capilla Romá
Rector
Rector of the UPV since 2021.,  Universidad Politècnica de València



Prof. Maria Esther Gómez Martín
Vice-rector for Students and Entrepreneurship
Vice-rector for Entrepreneurship since 2021. Vice-rector’s office for Students and Entrepreneurship,  Universidad Politècnica de València



María Márquez
Director of the Entrepreneurship Area and the IDEASUPV Program
Vice Rector’s office for Students and Entrepreneurship,  Universidad Politècnica de València



Prof. Francisco Jose Mora Mas
Former Rector
UPV rector for 8 years (From 2013 to 2021). Department of Electronic Engineering,  Universidad Politècnica de València



Prof. José Millet Roig
Former Vice-rector for Employment and Entrepreneurship. Ex-Director of IDEASUPV
Department of Electronic Engineering. Universidad Politècnica de Valènci,  Universidad Politècnica de València



Prof. Justo Nieto Nieto
Former Rector
UPV rector for 19 years (From 1986 to 2004). He founded the IDEAS UPV program.,  Universidad Politècnica de València


Acknowledgements

UPV ENTREPRENEURS WHO NOW ARE ADVISORS
Iñaki Belenguer (CEO and co-founder at Coverwallet)
Iker Markaide (Founder and Executive Chairman - Zubi Group and founder of PeerTransfer, that now is the unicorn Flywire Carlos Ferrando (Founder and CEO at CLOSCA | Inspire Change) Adrián Doménech (Co-founder & CEO of Camillion)
David Pistoni (Co-founder & CEO at Zeleros Hyperloop)
ORGANISATIONS
Berkeley University of California (Participating university in the Master in Startup Administration
MSA at the UPV).
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (UPV and the Valencia region participated in their MIT-REAP acceleration program for entrepreneurial regions).
Silicon Valley (They offer their facilities for internships and stays for our MSA students).
Startup Valencia (The association of the startup ecosystem of the Valencian Community. They collaborate with the UPV in events, challenges, etc.).
Valencia Activa (They help promote and coordinate employment policies and local economic development in the city of Valencia, around the areas of Employment, Entrepreneurship and
Training).
ENHANCE (European alliance in Entrepreneurship with Technische Universität Berlin, Politeknika Waszawska, Politecnico di Milano, RWTH Aachen, NTNU, and Chalmers).
INNOCENS (European project in which the IDEASUPV model was implemented in eight universities in Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan in collaboration with KTH and TUAS).
FUNDING BODIES
Generalitat Valenciana (The Regional Ministry of Sustainable Economy, Productive Sectors,
Commerce and Labour finance entrepreneurship programs, mobility grants, trainings, awards, for university students and teachers).
Banco Santander (Funds entrepreneurship programs such as Explorer, scholarships for MSA students, projects, etc).
TechTransfer UPV Investment Fund (First technology transfer fund promoted in a Spanish public university). EIT Climate-KIC (A European Commission initiative to fight climate change that organizes an accelerator, the largest cleantech startup competition, mobility programs for green entrepreneurs,
and trainings that are delivered by UPV).
Special acknowledgment to the whole IDEASUPV staff team who, with their effort and dedication every day, make all this possible. And to our StartUPV ecosystem because entrepreneurs are the most important actors of an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Images

1. Participation of IDEASUPV in the 4YFN

2. Training in Lean Canvas and Business Modeling with Néstor Guerra

3. Training at StartUPV Academies with Iñaki Berenguer

4. European Entrepreneurship Promotion Award in 2009

5. Hackathon IDEASUPV Challenge

6. StartUPV coworking facilities

7. StartUPV ecosystem

8. Closca (Ecosystem Startup)

9. Solatom (Ecosystem Startup)

10. Hyperloop (Ecosystem Startup)

IMPACT STORY

Impacting lifes

Iñaki Berenguer is a graduate in Telecommunications engineering from UPV. As a UPV student he acquired entrepreneurial skills such as leadership, teamwork, and resilience. After studying a PhD, he launched the startup Pixable, which provided social users with a customized photo experience using predictive analytics and AI. Pixable was sold to Singtel for US$26.5 million in 2012. After that, Iñaki created Contactive, a startup to identify 600 million callers before picking up the phone.

Contactive was sold to ThinkingPhones in 2015. After this, Iñaki created Coverwallet, a startup that used deep analytics to help small businesses manage insurance online in a matter of minutes. CoverWallet was incubated by UPV entrepreneurial ecosystem StartUPV where they shared know-how with many young entrepreneurs. After raising more than US$30 million in private investing rounds and more than 500 employees worldwide, Coverwallet was sold to Aon in 2020. Then, Iñaki collaborated with the UPV spinoff iPronics developing programmable photonic devices. Moreover, Iñaki Berenguer collaborates as an external mentor of startups at the UPV, is a professor in the Master in Startup Administration and is a business angel who has invested in other UPV startups such as Closca. Closca is a startup that creates design objects that inspire sustainable habits. His foldable helmet for cyclists is even sold at the MoMa in New York.
Hundreds of UPV entrepreneurs have been inspired by Iñaki Berenguer, and although they know that this is an exceptional case, they are guided by the UPV to start small, but thinking big.

LEARNINGS

Lessons learned

The UPV currently offers trainings, inspiring evets, free mentoring, hackathons, an incubation and acceleration startup program, competitions, and collaboration projects among other initiatives. All this is possible thanks to a constant work during the last 30 years. Building a successful area of entrepreneurship cannot be achieved in a day, but starting with a MVP, universities can also expand their services step by step. The first requirement for an entrepreneurial university is to bet on the talent of its students, graduates, and staff. One of the main success factors for startups is a multidisciplinary team. Team issues are the third main reason for startup mortality. Establishing a balanced founding team considerably increases the chances of success. Technology-based companies need a team composed of CEO, CTO and CMO profiles. For this reason, universities are the ideal place for the creation of high-potential entrepreneurial teams.
A good mentoring service needs mentors with entrepreneurial experience, who take a personal interest, willing to share knowledge and skills exhibiting enthusiasm, and who act as a positive role model providing guidance and constructive feedback. Professors are also key players encouraging entrepreneurship at class. The university must understand that it is not an isolated agent but has a very important role in a much larger entrepreneurial ecosystem. Finally, incubators are excellent environments to generate synergies between entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs must fall in love with their customers and not with their products. They must validate their business models with few resources and invest more aggressively when they scale their businesses.

FUTURE PLANS

What's coming?

Universities play a fundamental role in the "knowledge society" where a great capacity for adaptation is needed. The UPV is an institution with the capacity to lead the changes and demands of the environment, and an open institution, with a clear vocation of involvement of all the people who are part of it and that provides services without geographical or cultural boundaries. Therefore, the UPV will continue to develop quality training, ensuring that the entire university community acquires entrepreneurial skills through a defined itinerary. The UPV is also working on organizing learning programmes based on learning by challenges, which encourage the generation of multidisciplinary entrepreneurial teams with high capacities. The UPV will continue to be a national and European benchmark in entrepreneurship, with projection in Latin America. IDEASUPV and StartUPV will continue to be the referent of university entrepreneurial ecosystems, attracting resources and talent. UPV’s goals for 2030 include: The creation of 900 new technology-based startups (with 2700 founders and more than 30k employees), to achieve the number of 100 business chairs with corporates, to achieve more than €500M of investment for UPV startups and the creation of a new investment body with UPV Alumni investors and external stakeholders, more than 400 new challenges to be solved by multidisciplinary teams, a commitment of every new startup to the SDGs including the reduction of 1 million tones of CO2 emissions, 20 new agreements with agents of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and 30 new projects to share best practices with international agents.

KEY STATISTICS

961

Companies created by the UPV Entrepreneurship service since 1992 including 28 tech transfer spinoffs.

66.4%

Overall survival rate of the UPV startups since 1992.

+500M€

Private investment achieved for UPV startups in the last 7 years.

8350

University entrepreneurs mentored by UPV with +15000 hours of mentoring services.

+100

Entrepreneurial events per year with +1000 training hours (including hackathons, trainings, challenges and other competitions).

565

IP initiatives (patents and software), and an entrepreneurial test with registered intellectual property by UPV.

8280

R&D projects

1210M€

Incomes related to R&D activities since 1995 (78M€ in 2021) thanks to the +4500 university researchers

17

years in the Ranking of Shanghai ARWU, one of the most prestigious university rankings and first polytechnical university of Spain.

73

Business chairs with corporates with an investment of over 3M€ per year.

10

Universities that have already implemented their entrepreneurial ecosystems following UPV guidance in Europe, Asia and Latin America since 2016.

500.000€

In direct awards by UPV to its entrepreneurs in the last 7 years.

Triple E Awards

The Triple E Awards are a global recognition of efforts toward the quest for entrepreneurship and engagement in higher education. It is the first award to focus specifically on different dimensions of the universities' third mission. Implemented regionally, the Triple E Awards aim to foster change in universities and to emphasize their role in their communities and ecosystems.

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