Biotechnology and the digital sector, key areas of the spin-offs
EL COMERCIO | 22 de noviembre de 2020
208 companies make up the Asturian community of Technology-Based Companies, of which 80% survive for more than 5 years.
A total of 559 Technology-Based Companies (EBT) projects in 20 years. This is the balance offered by the European Center of Innovation Companies of the Principality (CEEI), in its work to stimulate entrepreneurial vocations in the region. In fact, they have managed to maintain an annual start-up rate of a dozen EBTs and, at present, the Asturian community is made up of 208, with a level of survival much higher than the national average: 80.5% exceeds five years.
20% of these companies (40) are spin-offs arising mainly from the academic and technological fields (65%). The other 35% comes from the business. The sectors that triumph among them are biotechnology and digital, with 32.5% and 27.5% respectively.
Precisely with the aim of supporting this transfer to the market of science and knowledge of research projects through these new innovative business initiatives, the CEEI launched the Radar spin-off Award, which this year will have a special edition. The endowment of this award, which is aimed at researchers who develop their professional activity in public and private Asturian technology centers, is increased on this occasion from 2,000 to 18,000 euros. In its five previous editions, 43 applications were received from 10 entities, in which 139 researchers participated. In 2020, 11 projects have been presented by 56 researchers from six Asturian research centers.
Two examples
Let’s take two examples of spin-off: Knowhow Innovative Solutions (Khisgroup), established at the end of 2015, and emerged from the Polytechnic School of Engineering of Gijón and ADN Mobile Solutions, emerged in 2009 from the CTIC Foundation.
Knowhow Innovative Solutions (Khisgroup), according to Tomás García, one of the partners and founders, specialize in solving “all types of browns that have to do with structural integrity and welding.” With the support of two professors, Cristina Rodríguez and Javier Belzunce, and with the support of research groups, testing laboratories and different scientific-technical services of the University, a company was born that already has eight people on its staff and six collaborators . “We have incorporated young people and we are strongly committed to continuous training, since all the projects that come to us involve facing problems that require a lot of study and creativity,” he says.
Spin-off arising from the University of Oviedo
According to Tomás García, the pandemic “thanks to the fact that we have a very diversified business, I think that more than a brake it can be considered a challenge: it will force us to do stronger commercial work, and perhaps to go abroad more, but if we play our cards well I think we can emerge stronger from this crisis.
ADN Mobile emerged from the R&D department of Fundación CTIC, with David Martínez and Abel Rionda at the head of that spin-off. Its current line of business is focused on efficient and safe driving, especially focused on urban passenger buses, “in which technology allows us to evaluate the operation of vehicles to improve the use made of them.”
Although the evolution of the company is good, the pandemic put a brake on its main line of business. But, at the same time, a challenge in what they could contribute as a technologist to society «to get out of this (or those to come), and we have created, together with Red Tactica, Lirazén, the ICT Cluster and with the support from the Principality, the Cercadti system for the traceability of close contacts between people ”.
Link to the news: https://www.elcomercio.es/tecnologia/asturias-innova/asturias-spin-off-biotecnologia-sector-digital-20201122181454-nt.html