With this edition, South Summit celebrates 10 years as the main global meeting point for the most important players in the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem. Under the slogan 'Decoding Complexity', this edition will once again bring together thousands of corporations, investors, entrepreneurs, and a hundred startups from around the world with the aim of generating valuable connections between them and real business opportunities.

The hundred or so startups that will enter the final phase of the Startup Competition have been chosen through a rigorous selection process from among more than 3.000 applications from 114 countries.

A committee of renowned investors and innovation experts has overseen this selection, based on criteria such as the level of innovation, scalability, internal growth potential, investment capacity, and the characteristics of the human team that makes up each company.

In addition to connecting with key innovation players, these selected projects will have the opportunity to pitch live to the most important corporations, investment funds, and leaders of the ecosystem that will gather at La Nave in Madrid during South Summit.

The finalist startups of the competition belong to leading industries such as Fintech & Insurtech, Comms & Channels, Energy Transition & Sustainability, Connectivity & Data, Industry 5.0, Health & Wellbeing, Education, Digital Business, Consumer Trends, and Mobility & Smart Cities.

Half of the finalists are from Spain, mainly from Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia. The other half will come to Madrid from 29 different countries, such as the UK, USA, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, and Brazil, among others.

Regarding their stage of development, it should be noted that 3 out of every 10 finalists are already scaleups, in advanced development, while 54% are in the 'early stage' and 18% are in the seed stage.

Among the finalists, projects founded by men predominate (63%), while only 4% have a woman behind their creation, and 33% are backed by several founders, both men, and women.

By industry, the 100 finalist startups in this edition are:

1. Comms & Channels: Alana AI, AR Vision, Cloudware SL, inSTREAMLY, Overly, Quantic Brain, Streamion, Syntonym Limited, Virtual Zone, Wedio.
    
2. Connectivity & Data: Appentra Solutions, Centraleyes, FOSSA Systems, Opticks Security, Formaloo, RepScan Technology, swiDch.
    
3. Consumer Trends: Brickbro, ColorSensing, DSruptive, HarBest Market, Hamelyn, Hamwells, INSTTANTT, katch, HeyBooster, Siga, ZEG.ai.
    
4. Digital Business: BizAway, Citibeats, Kotozna, Last.app, Napptive, Parallel, Payslip, SLANG,  Usyncro (Blockchain Customs), TramitApp.
    
5. Education: Bcas, Bemyvega, Bodyswaps, Classlife Education, Iris Solutions, Singularity Experts, Tech AdaptiKa, Vocal Image, Wrtn Technologies, Lifecole, MobieTrain.
    
6. Energy Transition & Sustainability: APlanet, EPowerlabs, Plexigrid, PowerUP, Ryp Labs, Star Robotics, VEnvirotech, WeGaw, PowerUp.
    
7. Fintech & Insurtech: Apres, bsurance, Caura, Colibid, Nemuru, Payflow Digital, Twinco Capital, Vitaance, YOURS Bank, Uelz.
    
8. Health & Wellbeing: A4cell, Cyber Surgery, Finnadvance, Hyfe, Marsi Bionics, Nanoker,  Predictiv, Sentient Med, Time is Brain, Tucuvi, Integra Therapeutics, Nucaps Nanotechnology.
    
9. Industry 5.0: Arkadia Space, Colabra, Cubex Global, Cubic Fort, Envirocrete, KIT-AR, MiFood Robot, Nextmol, SimpleCloud. Ororatech.
    
10. Mobility & Smart Cities: EVA, Fastree3D, MOLABO, Pangea Aeroespace, Postis, Road.Travel, SimpliRoute, Skandal Technologies, Zeleros, heyCharge, TechMox.

It is a wide range of sectors that bring together 100 innovative and cutting-edge ideas, such as a robot that automates the process of harvesting and collecting food on farms, a solution for the diagnosis of ischaemic cardiovascular diseases in hospital emergencies, or a system for detecting forest fires from outer space. However, software and cybersecurity projects are the most representative among this year's finalists.

Decoding complexity, the main objective of South Summit 2022

For 10 years South Summit has been the main meeting point for the actors of a constantly evolving innovation ecosystem. Many of the solutions and technologies that the 100 finalist startups are working on, such as artificial intelligence, the world of streaming or robotics, are proof that the entrepreneurial ecosystem is advancing at breakneck speed due to the complexity of the world around us. Therefore, the main objective of South Summit 2022 will be to 'Decode Complexity' to make it more accessible to the entire ecosystem and extend it to all citizens.

A goal that will also involve the more than 300 speakers who have already confirmed their attendance in Madrid between 8 and 10 June. Among them, entrepreneurs, investors, and businessmen of recognised prestige and success such as Sal Khan, founder, and CEO of the non-profit educational organisation Khan Academy; Marc Oshima, co-founder and CMO of AeroFarms, leaders in sustainable indoor agriculture; Marci Zaroff, founder and CEO of ECOfashion Corp, a benchmark in the sustainable fashion sector; Iñigo Charola, CEO of the biotech company BioTechFoods, dedicated to the development of synthetic meat; Alex Laplaza, partner of Lowercarbon Capital and expert in scalable climate and ecological solutions; and Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education, Youth, and Sport.