South Summit 2025, a hub for entrepreneurship that connects talent and investment

Entrepreneurship, innovation and investment. Under the theme ‘In Motion’, South Summit 2025 once again focused on entrepreneurship, innovation, and investment, attracting over 20,000 people, 7,500 startups and 2,100 investors. BBVA Spark  played a major role at the event, with a dedicated stand, hosting an exclusive brunch for founders and investors and contributing to various panels.

“We don’t just want to be financiers; we also want to be drivers of the ecosystem”, said Santiago Muguruza, global head of BBVA Spark, during a session that addressed the main challenges facing Latin American companies in their growth phase. In this area, BBVA goes beyond banking and financing, supporting day-to-day management and guiding companies through expansion.

Muguruza’s panel featured Marta Cruz (co-founder of NXTP Ventures), Pedro Conrade (CEO of Neon) and Martin Varsavsky (founder of Gameto), who unanimously agreed on one thing: the high value of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Latin America, a region with enormous potential and talent despite its many challenges. Countries like Brazil, Mexico and Colombia lead in resource efficiency and are positioned as leaders in this field, according to the latest ‘Colombia Tech Report’.

A key focus of South Summit 2025 was on efficient capital management during growth stages, fundamental for moving a business forward. “Predicting the future well and charting the path from the beginning of a startup’s life cycle is super important”, said Jan de Dreu, debt investment specialist at BBVA Spark. The round table moderated by Jan de Dreu included Ricardo de Tomás, founder of DRIZA, and Federico Patrioli, co-founder and COO of TimeFlow. The speakers addressed the essential financial strategies for scaling a business, sharing insights from their own companies and drawing from their experience to offer several recommendations on how to optimise the use of capital.

“We set objectives first, then work backwards: what investments do we need to get there?” said Patrioli, who later shared several tips on how businesses can structure financial strategy and define a clear vision from the start, set achievable milestones or stay flexible (without losing focus). Ricardo de Tomás emphasised the importance of accurately breaking down how the budget is used: “It’s often unclear how much of the marketing area is allocated to salaries, how much to media or how much is really allocated to branding—and that matters to investors”.

The session also explored how to generate value within the company, whether through aspects like organisational culture, purpose or customer relationships. “Numbers tell part of your company’s story, but not the whole picture”, Patrioli noted.

One of the key aspects of entrepreneurship is to look beyond the local to explore other markets. This was the focus of the panel moderated by Donatella Callegaris, head of Venture & Growth Lending at BBVA in Europe, which examined both the challenges and opportunities offered by the international market. The session featured José Marín, co-founder of FJ Labs; Gilles Le Cocguen, director of EuroQuity; and Bedy Yang, managing partner of 500 Global.

“Europe is closing the gap with the US, but bureaucratic and regulatory differences persist”, said Donatella Callegaris. “The European ecosystem is very fragmented and that’s an obstacle, along with the well-known lack of funding”, she added. Callegaris also noted that “there is a lack of professional networking in tech and innovation”.

Bedy Yang pointed to a key difference between the US and Europe: mindset. “In the US, the idea is that ‘anything is possible’ and investors tend to be much more open to backing early projects”, he said. Gilles Le Cocguen added that there are innovation hubs in Europe that, despite their potential, “struggle to break into the US market”.

Despite the challenges, there are significant achievements worth highlighting. José Marín, co-founder of FJ Labs, praised one of the major successes of the Spanish ecosystem: “One of Spain’s strengths lies in its benchmarks. Not only because they prove that success is possible, but also because they motivate others to follow the same path”. The Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem is now one of the largest in Europe, exceeding €100 billion in valuation, according to ‘The Spanish Tech Ecosystem Report’ by Dealroom and BBVA Spark.

With over 5,000 active startups, nearly 500 consolidated scaleups, close to €2 billion in annual investment and growing international fund participation, Spain is a dynamic entrepreneurial hub. “Spain is growing, and growing fast. International investors no longer see Spain as an early-stage startup market, but as a scaleup market with loads of potential. Beyond Madrid and Barcelona, we have hubs like Malaga, Seville, Bilbao and Valencia that create a more connected and robust ecosystem”, said Miguel Ángel Alcalá, head of BBVA Spark in Spain, who moderated a panel that also explored the factors driving the country’s evolution for scaling high-growth companies and attracting investment.

This view was shared by Mickael Roger, co-founder and CEO of PropHero, who noted that “Spain has everything a startup needs to grow: incredible talent, competitive salaries and an ecosystem open to collaboration”. George Dimopulos, co-founder and partner at VentureFriends, highlighted the country’s development in terms of ambition and entrepreneurial maturity. “A few years ago, we were one of the few international funds investing in Spain. Now we compete with many others: that says a lot about the country’s attractiveness”, he said.

Another South Summit discussion focused on venture debt, one of the financing alternatives that high-growth companies such as Casafari have tapped into to boost their development. The panel included Christhi Theiss, head of debt investments at BBVA Spark, who stressed using this tool to strategically time funding. “Venture debt isn’t for small or early-stage startups. It’s for supporting smart growth, with clear metrics and a solid operational base”, he said.

Modesta Rodríguez-Acosta, director of Atempo Growth, agreed with Theiss and stressed that the optimal time to use debt is during or just after an equity round, always with a realistic runway analysis.

As it does every year, South Summit 2025 closed this year’s event with the Startup Competition awards ceremony for the best startups of the year. The big winner was Lain Tech, a Spanish company based in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), which also won in the Industry 5.0 category.

Lain Tech’s proposal has attracted attention for its potential to transform the mining sector with E-LIX, an innovative process that extracts metals like copper or zinc directly on-site, eliminating  transport to large processing plants through fully sustainable electrochemical technology.

With 400 speakers, 140 investors and 19 unicorn founders from around the world, South Summit 2025 underscored its international reach, cementing Madrid’s role as a global hub for entrepreneurship and innovation.