Uelz, a Valencian startup that came first place in the Fintech category yesterday, has emerged as the overall winner of South Summit Madrid 2023. Uelz helps save technical costs of implementation and maintenance of payment platforms, automating all subscriptions and one-time payments of customers in seconds.

The awards for the best team as well as the most disruptive, scalable, and sustainable startups were also announced during the event. Thus, the Hensilki startup Onego Bio, which has cracked the code to produce egg white protein without chickens through precision fermentation has been selected as the Most Disruptive. The German startup Build38, which offers reinforcement and protection for apps to secure their users' personal data against potential cybersecurity threats, won the award for Most Scalable. The Basque company Legit. Health, a project developed by the University of the Basque Country (UPV) that is transforming clinical practice in dermatology thanks to its AI platform, received the award for Best Team. Finally, the award for Most Sustainable Startup went to Lumio from Madrid, which contributes to the development of 100% sustainable communities, providing the opportunity to install, share or consume sustainable energy.

This eleventh edition of South Summit Madrid 2023 has managed to bring together important representatives of the Spanish and global entrepreneurial ecosystem at La Nave in Madrid, filling the space completely for three days with pre-pandemic attendance figures. "Of the 20,000 attendees who passed through this eleventh edition, 6,500 were entrepreneurs, 2,000 investors with an investment portfolio of more than $326 billion, and 650 speakers of the highest level. In addition, more than 175,000 high-value connections were made during these three days", said María Benjumea, president and founder of South Summit.

The closing ceremony was chaired by the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Tourism, Hector Gómez, who declared that "Madrid is a perfect place for entrepreneurship. We have many resources to facilitate entrepreneurial activity and I advise you to make use of them. Let us take advantage of the growth that is coming to Spain in the next few years to continue promoting entrepreneurship".

During the last day of South Summit 2023, the South Summit Kids Competition award, which recognises the entrepreneurial talent of the little ones, was also presented and awarded to the Madrid Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba school for its project 'Renewable Energy Town'.

SpaceTech and SportsTech, the stars of the last day

In addition to the award-winning entrepreneurs, SpaceTech and SportsTech were the main topics of conversation on Friday.

Within the SpaceTech track, contributions from Miguel Belló, Commissioner for the Aerospace PERTE of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, and Luca del Monte, Director of the Commercial Department of the European Space Agency, stood out. Belló pointed out the need to "involve the private sector in our space mission and encourage innovation in startups and entrepreneurs". Luca del Monte, meanwhile, pointed out that "in Europe, we are unfortunately starting very small but thanks to the investor community's support services, we are seeing significant changes. The private ecosystem in Europe is beginning to pick up on this".  

The Madrid-based startup Fossa Systems, specialising in the manufacture of satellites and IoT solutions, won this first edition of the SpaceTech track.

This year, with the aim of bringing together the main agents and stakeholders of the sports industry and the technology sector to explore and present the latest innovations, trends, and opportunities in sports technology, the SportsTech track was launched for the first time, with the participation of important figures from the world of sport such as Pau Gasol, Iker Casillas and Jon Bartlett, Performance, Research & Innovation Lead of the NBA, who on the last day of #SouthSummit23 spoke about how "one of the secrets of maximum performance for athletes is knowing how to integrate technology well into their routine. A lot of technology has failed because it hasn't connected with the people who understand it".  

Another highlight of the closing ceremony was from Darin Olien, American author, wellness expert and creator of the documentary series 'Down to Earth with Zac Efron', who encouraged "all of you who want to create, create. But I encourage you to create carefully, we don't want more problems, but rather solutions to the problems we already have". Robyn O'Brien, co-founder of Replant Capital, spoke about sustainability, noting how "we have all woken up to its importance. We all play a key role in how our businesses and companies contribute to improving human and planetary health."

During the last day, José Luis Martínez Donoso, general director of Fundación Once, wanted to highlight the organisation's commitment to startups and its acceleration programme, announcing the creation "of a commercial entity related to social impact, investment, and innovation funds".

For more information: https://www.southsummit.co/