For the second year in a row, the European Commission has acknowledged the company as one of the most attractive firms in open innovation

Startup Europe Partnership (SEP), the European innovation platform under the auspices of the European Commission, has recognized ACCIONA, for the second year in a row, as one of the most active companies in open innovation. ACCIONA has been granted this year’s “Open Innovation Challengers Award”, as well as the “Innovative Approach Award”, for its success in integrating startups into its innovation programs.

ACCIONA’s startup innovation program was launched two years ago as part of I’MNOVATION,, the company’s open innovation platform. Since then, throughout both its Spanish and Latin American editions, thirty-six companies have been selected to develop pilot projects, which ended with two out of three of these groups signing commercial agreements with ACCIONA’s business units.

The SEP’s annual awards ceremony took place yesterday in Madrid during the Scaleup Summit held on December 10^th to 11^th at the Madrid Stock Exchange.

Scaleup Summit is a gathering between startups (companies in their initial stage of operation), scaleups (companies in development stage), large corporations, institutions and investors, which aims to promote collaboration agreements and to boost innovation in Europe.

In the context of this gathering, ACCIONA leads, together with software developer Autodesk, in work dynamics in the digital construction, infrastructure and smart cities sectors.

By participating in the European Commission’s SEP program, led by Mind the Bridge, multinational firms become exposed to cutting-edge technologies and companies that are seeking partnerships and investment. For their part, startups and scaleups also gain access to strategic opportunities for commercial or corporate alliances, as well as financing options, whether through venture capital, private placements or IPOs.

Open innovation in Europe

On the occasion of its annual awards ceremony, SEP presented the Tech Scaleup Spain report, carried out in collaboration with ACCIONA, which analyzes the Spanish scaleup ecosystem in 2019 compared to the rest of Europe. The results show that Spain continues to be in fifth place in terms of the number of scaleups and the sixth in terms of capital invested. However, the Spanish scaleup panorama is currently facing stagnation, even though it is the best performing nation throughout southern Europe.