This chapter analyses how intermediate services support startups and scaleups in Spain including business incubation and acceleration and legal, advisory and other business services. It constitutes the tenth element of the entrepreneurial ecosystem framework used to assess Spain’s ecosystem. This chapter identifies strengths and areas for improvement, presents an international example for inspiration, maps recent policy developments, and offers recommendations for further improve intermediate services to startups and scaleups.
Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Diagnostics of Spain
Abstract
The availability of Intermediate Services in an entrepreneurial ecosystem is important in helping entrepreneurs obtain advice and guidance. They also help them overcome challenges in technical areas such as legal, financial, accountancy, engineering, and regulatory issues, without having to develop the competences internally (Clayton, Feldman and Lowe, 2018[1]). These inputs can be obtained from a range of sources including private firms, such as consultancies and legal firms, incubators and accelerators, and publicly-funded entrepreneurship support organisations (Bergman and McMullen, 2022[2]).
Spain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem offers strong intermediate services
The OECD entrepreneurial ecosystem diagnostics data show that Intermediate Services is a strong element in the Spanish ecosystem relative to European OECD countries overall. Notably, Spain is just behind France, but ahead of Germany and Italy on this element. Spain’s performance has also improved over the past decade (Figure 12.1).
Note: These scores are computed as the geometric mean for countries across the following indicators: i.) Number of incubators, accelerators and start-up support programmes per capita, Source: Crunchbase and OECD, ii.) Technical employment, % total employment, Source: OECD; iii. Coaches and mentors’ total count. Source: Crunchbase and OECD. Coaches and mentors’ values are transformed to logarithms before normalisation. Before aggregation, data are normalised using a min-max transformations where the max/min are equal to the sample mean +/- 2*sample standards deviations, relative to data from the 2020-2023 period. 2016-2020 scores are anchored to the 2020-2023’s data.
Looking at the indicators composing the Intermediate Services element (Figure 12.2), Spain’s availability of coaches and mentors is above the European OECD average, while the availability of incubators and technical experts are in line with the European OECD average.
Note: Data are presented as normalised scores obtained by applying min-max transformations to the raw values, where the max/min are equal to the sample mean +/- 2*sample standards deviations, relative to the average of data from the 2020-2023 period. 2016-2020 scores are anchored to the 2020-2023’s data.
There is a dense base of incubators, mentors and technical experts
Spanish entrepreneurs can rely on extensive intermediary services. This includes a high density of mentors and coaches per capita. Spain has similar densities as other European OECD countries in this area. Numbers of mentors and coaches have increased rapidly in Spain over the last decade, confirming the notion that the ecosystem is developing and may have not yet reached its maximum potential.
Spain’s incubator density (including related organisations such as accelerators and startup hubs) is in line with other European OECD countries. In per capita terms, smaller dynamic countries like Estonia or Switzerland have higher density, yet Spain features more incubators per capita than France and Germany, and only the United Kingdom can count more incubators than Spain among the largest European OECD economies.
In the Financial Times ranking of Europe’s 125 leading startup hubs – i.e. centres for founders offering incubator and /or accelerator programmes – 15 are in Spain, including one (Lanzadera) in the top 10 (Financial Times, 2025[3]). Only Germany and the United Kingdom do better (Figure 12.3). However, all Spanish leading startup hubs are located in one of the main cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia). Incubators in other regions are less strong.
Source: Financial Times, Europe's Leading Start-Up Hubs
In terms of technical employment, a proxy for availability of technical experts, Spain’s score is below the European OECD average. This points to a possible challenge for Spanish startups and scaleups to access technical support services.
Incubator and accelerator numbers have grown rapidly
The development of incubators and accelerators is decentralised in Spain, and the autonomous regions have played an important role in investing in the creation of various types of entities including public and private incubators, accelerators, business innovation centres (BICs), and science parks.
Thanks to these investments, Spain has grown its incubation and acceleration supply significantly over the past twenty years. The very first incubator in the country (Fivelab) was introduced in 2007 (Funcas, 2020[4]), and over the past 20 years the number of incubators has grown to over 200 as Spain has caught up with other European countries. For instance, France counts about 280 incubators and accelerators and Italy less than 200. A large share of incubators and accelerators are public entities, financially supported by regional and local governments (Social innovation monitor, 2019[5]). Although, going forward, it would be important to assign roles and responsibilities to avoid inefficient overlaps and duplications, the growth of incubation offer in Spain has granted access to these services across regions (OECD, 2023[6]).
Within this incubation supply, Spain has a total of 124 business innovation centres (BIC) (or Agrupación Empresarial Innovadora (AEI)) each signed up in the official national register. 33 of them are connected to the network of European BICs, with the Asociación Nacional de Centros Europeos de Empresas e Innovación (ANCES), representing the Spanish actors within the European BIC network. These centres are essentially clusters that include incubators, offering transfer knowledge services, other integrated services, and access to finance. They also act as public-private dealmakers; they establish connection between founders and research centres and provide a validation service for quality certification. The breadth of their operations has increased over time, evolving from just incubation to a more complete offer of innovation services.
Science parks have been developed in parallel to incubators, with many started even earlier. The first 8 Spanish science and technology parks were created between 1985 and 1992, mainly driven by the regional governments. About the same time, the central government introduced the Law 13/1986 on the "Promotion and General Co-ordination of Scientific and Technical Research", which has put research on the policy agenda, and prepared the ground for strengthening the research system and its financing. Among the first 8 science parks realised in Spain there is the Andalusia Technology Park, which is now recognised as one of the most important technological parks in southern Europe. Since 1995, it hosts the headquarters of the Association of Science and Technology Parks of Spain (APTE) as well as the International Association of Science Parks. In the 1990s, universities started to get involved with the development of science parks, and from the early 2000s the central government contributed to the development of science parks through grants. Today, about 60 parks are members or affiliates of the APTE, reaching collectively over EUR 2 117 million of investments in R&D activities in 2024.1 There is at least one science park in each of the 17 autonomous regions of Spain.
Recently, the Association of Science and Technology Parks has created the APTENISA programme with Empresa Nacional de Innovación (ENISA), which has now reached its third edition. The programme put in place a common system for scouting and financing, aiming at identifying 75 new promising technology ideas and the acceleration of 30 startups through the support of 7 science parks located in 5 autonomous regions.
Large corporates are also active in incubation, not only through internal dedicated research centres, but also through incubation companies and their spin offs. For example, ArcelorMittal has established a research unit, an incubation company, and several spin-offs in the Asturias region, building on the region’s shipbuilding and steel industries. Regional governments can also work with corporates to propose open innovation initiatives, focusing on innovation co-operation activities rather than just R&D. The idea is to move from a situation where innovation is either created internally (through R&D) or transferred from large research centres to a model that supports specific projects to share existing capabilities and knowledge across corporates and other partners to generate innovation, including innovative startups and scaleups.
A further initiative, Desafía, created by Red.es and ICEX (the Spanish trade and investment promotion agency), aims at offering soft-landing services to Spanish startups in foreign markets. Since 2011, the programme mentors and accompanies startups in establishing relations with stakeholders in some of the most innovative ecosystems in the world, at the same time creating a community of startup founders, mentors and established companies. There are 13 different programmes, each set up in a different global city, with a specific sector focus, managed by experts from the foreign ecosystem. The initiative offers an opportunity for Spanish startups and scaleups to learn from some of the best experts and mentors in top innovation hubs and to prepare their access to foreign markets.
Availability of incubation and mentoring varies across regions
According to the Spanish think tank Funcas, about 60% of incubators are located around the two main Spanish cities (Barcelona and Madrid), followed by other large cities such as Malaga and Valencia, while in less urbanised regions such as Estremadura or Navarra support exists but at a much lower extent (Funcas, 2020[4]). Data from the social innovation monitor also highlight these regional differences in incubation (Figure 12.4).
Overall, there are differences in incubator provision between the larger cities and smaller centres and rural areas. This can have adverse effects on smaller communities, where the typical challenges encountered by startup founders, such as not knowing where to start, access to funding, and lack of direction, are more difficult to overcome due to lower density of peer networks and support structures.
Source: Social innovation monitor (2020)
Recently, the European Commission has introduced EU-financed AI factories in various European cities, and Barcelona has been selected as the city hosting one of them, where the EU supercomputer centre and related services will be developed (European Union, 2025[7]). This centre will provide a natural connection point with other European hubs, and, at the same time, existing incubators in the region will also benefit from the creation of access points to the supercomputing network. It will, however, also further reinforce the leading position of Barcelona within the Spanish ecosystem. In this area, Spain can draw from the Germany’s Digital Hub Initiative as a way to build a co-ordinate a network of hubs in a federal context (Box 12.1).
There are also differences across regions in availability of quality mentoring. In Spain, most mentors are volunteers. Some of them come from the public sector, while many are CEOs who received earlier support (e.g. funding or an entrepreneurship award) and want to help other founders. Their time, however, is precious. Their mentoring services are not rewarded economically, they almost always have other jobs or businesses and tend to reside close to the main cities, making it difficult for incubators in remote locations to attract them.
Currently, each regional government has its own incubator programme, but no mechanism exists to synchronise them. Better co-ordination and linkages across incubators could help improve access of entrepreneurs in less well served communities to advice and technical expertise from incubators elsewhere.
Startups and scaleups can be helped with access to technical and legal expertise
Drafting non-disclosure agreements, negotiating contracts, interpreting the tax code, setting intellectual property (IP) rights, and understanding product-specific regulations are essential for business development, but hiring specialists in these domains can be extremely costly for startups.
There is currently no dedicated programme to facilitate access to legal counselling for startups. Incubators and accelerators can offer meetings with lawyers, but they are often not detailed and long enough to solve specific startups’ problems. In some cases, the involvement of a venture capital fund can help founders to better access lawyers and legal advisors. However, programmes to help startups access legal support would be beneficial in supporting startups and scaleups to access these services.
Description
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action launched the Digital Hub initiative (initially called 12 DE-HUB) in 2017, with the goal of establishing Germany as a leader in digital innovation by fostering localised, sector-driven but globally connected ecosystems.
A sector-focused hub was set up in 12 regions, each specialised in a sector aligned with the region sectoral strength. The hubs act as a connector between startups, SMEs, universities and corporations and offer industry-specific incubation/acceleration programmes with mentoring and VC connection opportunities. Some hubs also establish open innovation platforms allowing startups to access testbeds and shared labs.
The hubs are also networked with one another to co-ordinate them along with the country’s strategic vision, and to take advantage of synergies to transfer technologies that emerge from hub to hub based on complementary capabilities. For example, a hub with a strong manufacturing specialisation base can offer solutions to startups developing IT hardware.
In 2024, the initiative was expanded to 25 themed hubs, each located in a different city and focused on a specific digital technology or industry vertical. The new hubs were selected by the central government through an application process based on fit with the initiative’s thematic and regional goals. For example, hubs need to be based in regions where there are universities and companies that are global market or innovation leaders in their industry and conduct industry-specific research. The hub location should also already have a start-up community with people who can serve as mentors or advisers.
A particularly important aspect of the 2024 expansion of initiative is to help German startups to internationalise. The Federal Government is in the process of identifying international startup ecosystems to network with. Once the selection is completed, a point of contact will be created for startup players, co-ordinated by the German Office for Foreign Trade (GTAI). The objective is at the same time to promote learning opportunities for German startups, increase the visibility of the German start-up ecosystem, create a stronger startup-Germany brand, and create soft-landing opportunities for German startups abroad.
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs is developing a creative international marketing campaign in co-operation with the Hub Agency and GTAI to attract international startups to set up their business activities in Germany.
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action finances the Hub Agency (RCKT), and the GTAI. However, it does not fund the single hubs directly. The local hubs are financed by private supporters and partners, and through the development of their own programmes.
Success factors
Germany is a federal country, thus, while incubation and acceleration are decentralised, the federal government acts as a platform co-ordinator, which connects the local ecosystems. Every hub is locally managed, but part of a nationally co-ordinated framework. Each hub, while managed regionally, benefits from a common branding vis-à-vis international actors and strategic alignment via the Ministry. The role of the central government is also to set the framework, standards, and evaluation mechanisms. Such co-ordination supports regional sector specialisation, encouraging each region to develop sector-specific rather than general-purpose incubators.
Lessons for Spain
Spain is decentralised with regions specialising in specific industries. A national Spanish “Local Hubs” Initiative could maintain the regional hubs’ structure but with greater national co-ordination. A national ministry or entity could act as platform co-ordinator to maximise synergies across regions and encourage specialisation and limit competition across hubs. In addition, local ecosystems could benefit from a single branding and international soft-landing infrastructure set up by a national central government unit or agency, allowing startups in each hub to interact with foreign investors, firms, experts and incubators under a “Spain” umbrella initiative.
Sources: Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action. The Digital Hub Initiative in brief; Second progress report on the implementation of the Federal Government’s startup strategy; Digital hub initiative press kit.
Incubation, acceleration and other support services to startups and scaleups have grown exponentially over the past twenty years and have today caught up with many European OECD countries, with the involvement of many stakeholders and regions.
Many incubation and acceleration supports are driven by funding from autonomous regional governments and there are challenges to better synchronise these efforts at national level by creating better connections between incubators and accelerators and ensuring good availability of incubation and accelerator outside the main urban centres.
To improve Spain’s intermediate services, it is recommended that the Spanish authorities:
Improve regional co-ordination by creating institutional mechanisms that enhance harmonisation and collaboration among incubators and accelerators across regional ecosystems.
Leverage regional competitive advantages encouraging local incubators to specialise in regionally strong sectors.
Improve monitoring and evaluation of incubation programmes to establish track records and performance history of different programmes.
References
[2] Bergman, B. and J. McMullen (2022), “Helping Entrepreneurs Help Themselves: A Review and Relational Research Agenda on Entrepreneurial Support Organizations”, Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, Vol. 46/3, https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587211028736.
[1] Clayton, P., M. Feldman and N. Lowe (2018), Behind the scenes: Intermediary organizations that facilitate science commercialization through entrepreneurship, https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2016.0133.
[7] European Union (2025), The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking - AI factories, https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/ai-factories_en.
[3] Financial Times (2025), “Europe’s Leading Start-Up Hubs”.
[4] Funcas (2020), Los servicios que prestan los viveros y aceleradoras de empresas en España.
[6] OECD (2023), Regions in Industrial Transition 2023: New Approaches to Persistent Problems, OECD Regional Development Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5604c2ab-en.
[5] Social innovation monitor (2019), Incubators and Accelerators in Spain.
← 1. Source: APTE https://www.apte.org/en/