In May 2026 the Spanish government approved its Deep Tech Strategy 2026-2030, with more than 8,000 million euros of planned investment to strengthen the country's scientific and technological capabilities and build companies on top of them. The Valencian Community starts that race from third place, behind Catalonia and Madrid, as a feature by Ana Delgado in Valencia Plaza set out in June.
Deep tech companies are built on advanced science, which is why so many come out of universities and research centres. They develop slowly, face high barriers to entry and need a lot of capital, in exchange for the potential to transform whole production systems.
The numbers behind the Valencian cluster
A 2024 report by Mobile World Capital counted more than 1,200 deep tech spin-offs in Spain and placed Valencia as the third national hub, with 124 organisations. A second study, on Spain's deep tech spin-off ecosystem in 2025, counted 105 active spin-offs in the Valencian Community, 11.1% of the national total, generating more than 2,000 high-value jobs and more than 280 million euros in annual revenue.
The local ecosystem is organising around it. Startups Valencia runs a Deeptech WorkGroup with the stated goal of making the Valencian deep tech ecosystem an international reference. Lanzadera backs the sector too, especially through Angels Capital, Juan Roig's investment vehicle, whose deep tech bets include Internxt, with decentralised cloud services, and Quibim, in health.
From the lab to the market
The Universitat Politècnica de València and the Universitat de València have a long record of knowledge transfer. Matteco, one of the region's most promising projects, is a Universitat de València spin-off founded in 2023 that develops next-generation materials to decarbonise the economy. It builds on more than ten years of research by chemist Gonzalo Abellán Sáez into two-dimensional materials. Iker Marcaide, executive chairman of Zubi Group, leads it as CEO and co-founder.
In aerospace, PLD Space was born in 2011 in the science park of the Universidad Miguel Hernández in Elche, founded by engineers Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú. It now has more than 450 people working on its MIURA family of reusable launch vehicles and its LINCE crewed capsule. The company has raised more than 210 million euros in 2026: 180 million in a Series C in March, backed by Spain's Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, and another 30 million from the European Investment Bank shortly after.
Not every story ends that way. Zeleros, founded ten years ago at the UPV to develop hyperloop technology in Spain, entered voluntary insolvency proceedings in April. In May the technology group Grupo Amper announced it would acquire its assets and capabilities for one million euros, and Zeleros has since refocused on advanced electrification. The assets can be sold, but the knowledge stays.
AI for business intelligence, from Alicante
Golden Owl, linked to the Alicante Science Park and founded by Ana Beik (CEO) and Sabi Soltani (CTO), both with a background in banking, has built its own B2B SaaS platform for business intelligence and risk management. It combines multi-agent artificial intelligence, data fusion and access to non-indexed information to turn fragmented data into structured intelligence. The company recently closed a 1.4 million euro seed round and is backed by public bodies such as ENISA and CDTI.
