5 days ago
The Spanish startup Lain Tech crowned winner of South Summit Madrid 2025
After three days marked by entrepreneurship and innovation, South Summit Madrid 2025, co-organised by IE University, concluded its fourteenth edition with the announcement of the winners of the Startup Competition. Lain Tech, a startup hailing from Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), is revolutionising mining with a sustainable electrochemical process to recover complex metals. The method reduces the carbon footprint by 94% and uses 100% electric energy.
At the closing ceremony of the 14th edition of South Summit Madrid 2025, four other startups were also recognised: U.S.-based Bankuish, from Miami, was named 'Most Disruptive'; Chilean Hera Materials was awarded 'Most Sustainable'; and Catalan startups NeuralTrust and Remuner received the titles of 'Most Scalable', and the startup with the 'Best Team,' respectively.
During the South Summit 2025 closing event, the award for the South Summit Kids Competition — organised in collaboration with Genyus School — was also presented to Alcaste - Las Fuentes School from Logroño (La Rioja) for its project Smart Cart, an intelligent shopping cart that organises purchases and provides useful product information.
Under the theme 'In Motion', the event, co-organised by IE University, brought together more than 600 speakers, 150 investors, and 19 unicorns at La Nave in Madrid from June 4 to 6. The event was backed by the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, the Community of Madrid, and the Madrid City Council, along with sponsors such as Mutua Madrileña, Google for Startups, BBVA Spark, Wayra – Telefónica Innovation, and BStartup from Banco Sabadell.
The president and founder of South Summit, María Benjumea, wanted to praise all the participating startups on the last day of the meeting with these words: 'The 100 finalists are champions. We have seen impressive projects these days, you are in charge of revolutionizing the world. You are not the future, you are the now'.
Another of the highlights of the closing day was the session 'From Deep Tech Innovation to Scale Up', which was attended by Teresa Riesgo, Secretary General of Innovation of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities; Manuel Escolano, Director of Open Innovation at Ferrovial; Esperanza Torralva, Director of Innovation at Moeves, and Natalia Álvarez, Head of Innovation at Repsol. During the meeting, public and private initiatives to promote technology transfer were presented, from funds such as Invest to open innovation projects or corporate investments in deep tech and sustainability.
All the participants in this session agreed that innovation only scales when there is real and sustained collaboration between administration, companies, and knowledge centres. They also wanted to underline the importance of aligning technological developments with industrial and social needs, and of committing to co-creation models that integrate all actors from early stages.
South Summit is the global platform that brings together all the actors in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to promote the development of business opportunities among all of them. Its main event is South Summit Madrid, co-organized by IE University, which has seen more than 42,500 startups pass through its thirteen previous editions, while its Startup Competition, from which 9 unicorns have been born, has resulted in more than 1,000 finalist startups, with a survival rate of 90% and 17,000 million dollars in investment raised.
