Spanish Startup Boom — And the Rocket Story From Elche You’ll Want to Know About

Photo source: PLD Space / LinkedIn

Spain’s startup scene isn’t just “catching up” anymore — it has doubled in value since 2020, with its tech ecosystem now worth over €110 billion. Quietly, it’s turning into one of Europe’s most dynamic innovation landscapes.

And one rocket — and one mid-sized city on the Costa Blanca — completely changed how I think about what a real innovation hub can look like.

One of Europe’s most ambitious space startups, PLD Space, isn’t based in London, Paris or even Madrid. It’s building reusable rockets from Elche — a city better known for Europe’s largest palm grove and a medieval sacred play, Misteri d’Elx, performed here almost every year for over 500 years and recognised by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

This is a story about how cutting-edge tech and ancient culture can not only coexist in the same place, but actually feed each other.

Spain’s Startup Boom

By 2025, Spain has quietly become one of Europe’s most interesting startup ecosystems — not just in narrative, but in hard numbers.

• Ecosystem value doubled According to the Spain Tech Ecosystem Report 2025 prepared by Dealroom, Spain’s startup ecosystem is now valued at €110+ billion, 2x its size in 2020.
• Record investment, even in a global slowdown In 2024, Spanish startups raised about €1.9 billion in venture capital across 672 deals, making Spain the 7th-largest VC market in Europe by volume and 4th by number of rounds. (sourse — Atomico’s annual “State of European Tech” report)
• 2025 is already stronger — in just half a year In the first half of 2025, Spanish startups raised over €2.0 billion in total funding — a 23% increase on the same period in 2024 — across 187 rounds, even though the number of deals fell by 11%. In other words: fewer rounds, more millions. Average and median round sizes climbed to around €12 million and €2 million respectively, with Series C and Growth rounds accounting for just 15% of all deals but 77–78% of total capital invested.
• A broad base, not just a few unicorns Spain now counts 8,580 active tech companies, up 22% year-on-year. Of these, 5,010 are startups, a sharp 38% annual jump. Together, they generate about €14.8 billion in yearly economic impact and employ over 108,000 people.
• AI and climate tech at the front In 2024, AI and climate tech each attracted over €300 million in funding, and since 2020, AI startups in Spain have raised more than €2 billion, making Spain the 5th-largest European market for AI investment.

And here’s the part that matters for this article:

This growth isn’t limited to Madrid or Barcelona — it’s spreading across Spain. Reports now regularly highlight Málaga, Valencia and San Sebastián as some of Europe’s most dynamic emerging hubs, and founders are increasingly choosing to stay in these cities instead of relocating to the big capitals.

How I Accidentally Discovered Elche

At one point, the company I worked for relocated me to the Azores after the war in Ukraine began. That’s a story for another day — about whales, volcanic lakes and what it means to rebuild a life in the middle of the Atlantic.

Later, I moved from Portugal to Spain.

Living in Madrid, one day I simply Googled:

“greenest city in Spain”

And that’s how I ended up in Elche — a city I had never heard of before.

When I arrived, I found:

• Europe’s largest palm grove and green park, wrapped around the city
• Incredible layers of history and culture
• And, to my surprise — some of Spain’s most exciting tech and brand success stories

(As a side note: those same Azores, sitting in a UTC–1 time zone between Europe and the US East Coast, are perfectly placed for teams working both markets — a future remote-work and startup story waiting to be told

From Sandals to Space

Let’s take a closer look.

Elche has long been known as a footwear and manufacturing capital. Out of that industrial base emerged brands that quietly went global — long before anyone here talked about “ecosystems”.

PLD Space — Europe’s first private company to launch its own suborbital rocket

• Launched MIURA 1 in October 2023 from Huelva, in what became Europe’s first private suborbital rocket launch: a 306-second flight, reaching about 46 km altitude, with the rocket recovered from the Atlantic.
• Founded in Elche in 2011, the company now has close to 300 employees across Elche (HQ), Teruel (test facilities) and Kourou in French Guiana.
• Has raised around €170 million to date in a mix of private capital and public instruments (including Spain’s Aerospace PERTE).
• Their mission? Make access to space more affordable and flexible — from Elche.

HOFF — €70M+ turnover, born in 2016

• Founded in 2016, HOFF mixes fashion, art and travel-inspired design into its sneakers.
• In less than a decade it has grown to around €70–77 million in yearly revenue, opened 30+ own stores, and sells in 40–50 countries, including key locations like London and Paris.

Hawkers Group — Spain’s first global e-commerce legend

• Started in 2013 with roughly $300 of initial capital and a Facebook page.
• Became one of Spain’s first global direct-to-consumer breakout brands by mastering Facebook ads and influencer marketing early.
• Today sells millions of sunglasses in 50+ countries and has expanded into apparel and lifestyle.

Gioseppo — Family brand turned international fashion player

• Founded in 1991 in Elche and still family-run.
• Now available in more than 60 markets, with a strong brand identity, sustainable collections and very loyal customer base.

Tempe (Inditex Group) — €1.5B+ logistics backbone of Zara’s empire

• Headquartered in Elche, Tempe designs and distributes all shoes and accessories for Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Pull&Bear, Oysho, Lefties and Zara Home.
• Generates around €1.5–1.6 billion in annual revenue and is one of Inditex’s most strategic global centres, coordinating tens of millions of pairs of shoes each year.

And it made me think:

Maybe Europe’s next tech revolution won’t be led from the big capitals. Maybe it will come from small cities full of this kind of unexpected, accumulated energy.

PLD Space: Rocket Building With a Local Soul

Photo source: PLD Space / LinkedIn

One of the best examples of this trend is PLD Space.

Founded in 2011 by Raúl Torres, Raúl Verdú and José Enrique Martínez in Elche, after meeting at Miguel Hernández University (UMH), they could easily have moved to Madrid or Barcelona to be “closer” to investors. They didn’t.

They made a conscious choice: to keep the company in the Valencian Community, and build from the city where they studied and lived.

As Raúl Torres said in 2016:

«Queremos que PLD Space se quede en la Comunidad Valenciana, atraer el talento aquí.» “We want PLD Space to stay in the Valencian Community — and to attract talent here.”

Today, PLD Space:

• Employs close to 300 people and is still growing.
• Has raised about €170 million to date, including a recently announced €130 million round that will help finance the development of MIURA 5.
• Successfully flew MIURA 1 in 2023 — Europe’s first private suborbital rocket — as a technology demonstrator for its orbital launcher.

Now the focus is on MIURA 5, PLD’s reusable orbital micro-launcher designed to carry small satellites to low Earth orbit from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou.

In November 2025, PLD Space unveiled its first fully integrated MIURA 5 unit, the Qualification Model 1 (QM1):

• a complete launcher used to validate both stages under near-real conditions,
• including a destructive test of the second stage’s Flight Termination System in the US,
• and a full Wet Dress Rehearsal (complete propellant loading test) of the first stage.

Over the next five months, the company plans to have three integrated MIURA 5 units ready — two qualification models and the first flight rocket — with the first orbital launch campaign targeted for the first quarter of 2026 in French Guiana.

The end goal: a cadence of up to 30 launches per year by 2030, giving Europe another independent option for putting payloads into orbit

All of this — engineering, testing, integration, talent — is being orchestrated from a city best known (until recently) for palm trees and shoes.

Elche and Its Rocket: How 200,000 People Built a Brand Community

“We want that if a child wants to see a rocket, they only have to travel a couple of hours within their own country — not go all the way to Cape Canaveral.”

— Raúl Torres, CEO of PLD Space, in an interview with Alicante Plaza (2022)

In Elche, wearing a PLD Space T-shirt is almost just as cool as wearing the Elche CF football jersey.

One weekend, I took my daughter for a walk near the Palm Grove park — and there it was:

MIURA 1, the first European private suborbital rocket — right on the street, open for everyone.

Of course, we stopped. Of course, we took photos — just like everyone else.

Just like the city cheers for its football club, it embraced the rocket. Kids lined up for selfies, adults smiled with pride. You could almost hear the unspoken sentence: “Esto es de aquí. This is from here.”

And what is mind-blowing is that you can stand in this city and see it all at once: a rocket — standing proudly, centuries-old architecture, palm trees everywhere, part of the Palmeral of Elche, Europe’s largest palm grove and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

And then you discover that this city holds a sacred tradition:

Misteri d’Elx — a sacred play about the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, performed here almost every year since the 15th century (the earliest written records date back to 1481), recognised by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. It has survived wars, pandemics, political shifts — and still lives on.

I love this mix.

It’s why I believe Europe’s future belongs to such cities — where innovation grows organically inside living culture, not just in glass towers.

Elche is a Perfect Example of How Europe Can Build Vibrant, Distributed Innovation Hubs

Elche shows how a small city can quietly become a powerful node in a national ecosystem:

• Alicante International Airport — 15 km away Direct connections to major European cities; you can land in Alicante and be in Elche in under half an hour.
• High-speed rail to Madrid nearby From Alicante’s AVE station, Madrid is about 2h20 away by high-speed train — close enough for same-day trips, far enough not to feel like a satellite neighbourhood.
• High quality of life Affordable compared to the big capitals, green, walkable, close to the sea, with 300+ days of sun a year.
• Universities and talent pipeline Home to Miguel Hernández University (UMH) and close to the University of Alicante and universities in Murcia, feeding engineering, design and business talent straight into local companies.
• An emerging innovation community A place where local and international talent now meet around space tech, fashion, logistics and digital — instead of having to move to Madrid or Barcelona.

Small City, Big Impact: Why Staying Local Works

Across Europe, emerging data shows a clear trend: small and mid-sized cities are becoming thriving platforms for tech thanks to:

• lower operating costs,
• strong local identities,
• and surprisingly dense networks once you’re on the ground.

In Spain alone, those 8,580 tech companies and 5,010 startups generate about €14.8 billion in economic impact and 108,000 jobs — and a growing share of that comes from regional ecosystems like Valencia, Málaga, Alicante and the Basque Country, not just Madrid and Barcelona.

Even in the broader European context, regional innovation hubs such as Lille (anchored by EuraTechnologies), Leipzig (an emerging German tech city), and the UK’s SETsquared university-led ecosystems show the same pattern:

You don’t have to build in a capital to build globally — but you do need a city that believes you can.

When a startup chooses to stay local instead of moving to a capital, several important things happen:

• Talent anchoring — graduates don’t have to leave to work on ambitious projects; instead, specialists move to them.
• Supply chains upgrade — traditional industries (like shoes in Elche) plug into new sectors (like aerospace), raising capabilities across the whole region.
• Identity shifts — the city’s narrative expands: from “palms and shoes” to “palms, shoes and rockets”.
• A new imagination for kids — space, AI, or hardware no longer feel like something that only happens in “other” countries or capitals.

More Than Just Business

Startups that choose to stay and grow inside their own communities build more than just companies.

They:

• shape the local identity,
• invest in education and future skills,
• create jobs that are rooted in place,
• pay local taxes,
• and quietly rewire how the next generation imagines their future.

Spain’s numbers are already impressive: a €110B+ startup ecosystem, record €1.9B VC in 2024, €2B+ raised in just the first half of 2025, and billions flowing into AI and climate tech.

But what makes me truly optimistic is not only the graphs.

It’s the image of a rocket standing among palm trees in a mid-sized city on the Costa Blanca — and the quiet knowledge that the next wave of European innovation will not only take off from London, Berlin or Paris, but also from places like Elche, where a little girl can see a rocket on a Sunday walk and think:

“This is from my city. Maybe my future is here too.”