Lanzadera: inside Juan Roig's startup factory

At the far end of the port, where the America's Cup hangars look out over the Mediterranean, one of Spain's most remarkable economic stories is unfolding. Juan Roig, the founder of Mercadona and a son of the region, built Marina de Empresas here: an entire campus dedicated to people starting companies. Its flagship is called Lanzadera, and it is today one of the most powerful startup accelerators in Europe. Here is the guided tour, plus a how-to if you want to get in.

A three-tier ecosystem

Marina de Empresas rests on three pillars that feed into one another. EDEM, the school of entrepreneurs, trains leaders and engineers around a house motto: learn from those who do. Lanzadera, the accelerator, supports startups day to day. And Angels, Juan Roig's investment company, writes cheques for the most promising projects. Training, acceleration, funding: the full circle of launching a business, gathered on a few thousand square metres facing the sea.

Lanzadera, the acceleration machine

Founded in 2013, Lanzadera has made scale its signature: where many accelerators pick ten projects a year, it welcomes dozens in every cohort. Its latest 2026 intake brought in 120 new startups at once, around 80% of which were already generating revenue. The companies selected move into Marina de Empresas for a renewable six months and receive support modelled on the Total Quality Model - the management method behind Mercadona's success: obsession with the customer, operational rigour, and personalised mentoring across every key area, from product to human resources.

The results speak for themselves: in the Financial Times' "Europe's Leading Start-Up Hubs 2026" ranking, Lanzadera climbs to 19th in Europe and 2nd in the Iberian Peninsula, in the Spanish top three for the third year running. Not bad for an accelerator that sits neither in London nor Berlin, but at the end of a dock in the port of Valencia.

What it changes for the city

The Lanzadera effect reaches far beyond the campus walls. Hundreds of young companies that passed through the programme have settled in Valencia for good, feeding the city with talent, skilled jobs and investors. Around the Marina, cafés, coworking spaces and tech events have flourished. When people ask why Valencia became a stronghold of Spanish tech, the answer almost always starts with those four syllables: Lan-za-de-ra. We tell the rest of that transformation in our piece on Valencia as a tech city.

How do you apply?

Good news: Lanzadera asks for no degree, no nationality and no pedigree. Applications are submitted online at lanzadera.es, with several admission waves each year. What matters: a solid team, a clear project and ambition. Revenue-generating projects have had the wind in their sails in recent cohorts, but earlier-stage ideas are still admitted through dedicated programmes. The application can be in Spanish or English, and the interview is prepared like an investor pitch: problem, solution, market, traction.

If you are more at the learning stage, keep an eye on EDEM and its programmes, from the university degree to short courses for executives. And if your project is looking for funds, Angels reviews applications from within the ecosystem.

The takeaway

A campus unlike any other in Europe, set on the port; an accelerator ranked among the continent's top twenty; and a surprisingly accessible way in: if you are building something in Valencia, Lanzadera belongs on your list. Before you dive in, get your status sorted - our guide to going autónomo explains it all, and the autumn tech calendar runs through the VDS, which we cover in a dedicated article.

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Sources

• Lanzadera - official site and application portal (lanzadera.es)
• Marina de Empresas, EDEM and Angels - marinadeempresas.es
• Financial Times / Statista, "Europe's Leading Start-Up Hubs 2026" ranking

Information verified in July 2026. Figures and rankings evolve; check the official sources before applying. The Daily Valencia is an AI-assisted publication with human review.