• The Port of Valencia, through the Fundación Valenciaport, seeks to become a benchmark for open innovation in ports through its own acceleration and incubation programme; a Living Lab and a financial instrument that will complement its R&D&I and training activities.

• The new Port of Valencia Innovation Hub will form part of Telefónica’s Open Innovation entrepreneurship network.

• Startups will be able to work directly in the Port of Valencia, fostering entrepreneurship and strengthening the city’s business fabric.

• The Telefónica Agora at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was the place where this new strategic relationship was announced

Valencia, 2 March 2022. – Fundación Valenciaport and Telefónica today announced their alliance to jointly develop the incubation and acceleration programme of the Port of Valencia Innovation Hub, an initiative that seeks to become a global benchmark in open innovation in the port logistics sector, fostering the creation and growth of innovative technology companies.

The creation of the new Innovation Hub is an initiative led by Fundación Valenciaport that will include, in addition to the incubation and acceleration programme, a Living Lab and a financial instrument, which will complement the Foundation’s R&D&I and training activities.

This new Innovation Hub will provide the participating startups with the possibility of working directly from and with the Port of Valencia, the leading Spanish port in terms of container traffic and the fourth largest European port, promoting not only regional, but also national and international entrepreneurship while strengthening the city’s business fabric.

The collaboration between Telefónica and Fundación Valenciaport is a comprehensive approach to accelerate and scale startups. The activities to be carried out as part of the incubation and acceleration programme will include entrepreneurship cycles consisting of a hackathon, a three-month incubation programme, an additional six-month acceleration programme and a pilot testing phase with companies in the Port of Valencia cluster.

In addition, this programme will form part of the Open Future network, Telefónica’s initiative to promote regional entrepreneurship as part of its open innovation strategy and, additionally, it will have the support and methodology of Telefónica so that the companies can scale.

Antonio Torregrosa, CEO of Fundación Valenciaport, expressed his satisfaction with this alliance that “will allow us to select and support the best technology startups to develop innovative solutions that respond to the business challenges of the Valenciaport cluster”.

Inês Oliveria, Global Head of Open Future at Telefónica, said: “At Open Future we have solid experience in bringing innovation and entrepreneurship to the business ecosystem, which supports us in finding out what technological projects the Port of Valencia needs in order to increase its competitiveness”.

This announcement was made during the meeting Innovation: Reinventing the future of ports in the Agora of the Telefónica stand within the framework of the Mobile World Congress, which is taking place in Barcelona and which will end tomorrow, Thursday 3 March. During the talk, Antonio Torregrosa, General Director of Fundación Valenciaport, Mafram Martínez, CTO Port Authority of Huelva and Head of the Port of Huelva project, Inês Oliveira, Global Head of Open Future, Agustín Moro, Global Head of Alliances at Open Future and Agustín Cárdenas, Director of Business Transformation of Companies, reflected on the role played by startups in ports, which companies form part of their business fabric and what business opportunities exist in the port sector.