On 5 February 2024, IESE's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center released its latest impact report, shedding light on the impact of IESE's entrepreneurship activities and progress toward our 2030 social goals. In this latest edition, the report showcases that companies founded by the IESE community have created 102,800 jobs worldwide and raised $14.5 billion in capital, including 3 unicorns, as IESE continues expanding its entrepreneurial ecosystem. For further insights, access the full impact report here. 

EU-LAC Digital Accelerator has now published their Open Call for EU-LAC Partnerships. The Call is open to EU-LAC Partnerships that address digital transformation challenges through Open Innovation.

As the academic partner of this European project, at IESE we look forward to enabling collaborations from Europe to Latin America and the Caribbean between established corporations and innovative start-ups and scale-ups to accelerate their digital transformation journey. Does your organization want to boost Digital Transformation through Open Innovation? Learn more about this Call.

On 22 February 2024, IESE Business School's WeStart mentoring initiative welcomes alumni founders to a hybrid networking session. Spotlighting the Business Angels Network (BAN), the event aims to facilitate connections between IESE entrepreneurs and the network, which has over 200 investors. Attendees will gain insights from BAN's presentation and testimonials, offering a rich opportunity for alumni to explore funding avenues and forge connections within the entrepreneurial ecosystem. 
Interested in finding out more? Then email us for more information. 

In 2022, IESE Business School and nine other institutions established the Digital Innovation Hub of Catalonia (DIH4CAT) to accelerate the integration of emerging technologies in businesses and institutions. IESE's role within DIH4CAT involves facilitating the adoption of emerging technologies by SMEs through open innovation and technology transfer. To date, we have mentored 99 organizations, conducted multiple bootcamps, and hosted webinars featuring IESE professors such as Mª Julia Prats, Kandarp Mehta, Pep Casas, Thomas Klueter, and Sandra Sieber.
Check out the success stories from entrepreneurs in areas such as supercomputing, smart connectivity, or cybersecurity to learn more about the impact of this European project.

Search funds have become increasingly popular among both entrepreneurs and investors, and more new investors are now trying to get into search fund deals. This recent paper by IESE Professor Rob Johnson highlights certain characteristics that are unique to search fund investing, and it aims at sustaining key factors that have led to past successes in this ecosystem.

Barcelona-based unicorn TravelPerk, founded by IESE MBA ‘11 Avi Meir and 40under40, has raised more than $104m in an extension of its $160m Series D round in April 2021. The new funding will allow the company to improve its business travel platform with AI capabilities. TravelPerk’s valuation has been boosted to $1.4bn, according to Pitchbook data.

How does benign framing by eager entrepreneurs lead to outright deception and a loss of legitimacy? IESE professors Yuliya Snihur and Llewellyn D.W. Thomas, with colleagues Raghu Garud (Smeal College of Business, Penn State) and Nelson Phillips (University of California, Santa Barbara), identify three stages in the entrepreneurial journey when the wheels can come off the bandwagon – and it may even to those with the best intentions. Read more and watch a short video in this IESE Insight article. 

As an entrepreneur building a company, should you hire in line with market demand or anticipate it? The choice you make, along with which profiles you hire, can shape your success. New research by IESE Professor Liinus Hietaniemi, with co-authors Simone Santamaria, Aleksandra Kacperczyk and Juhana Peltonen, shows how and why different entrepreneurs pursue different team scaling strategies. Read the IESE Insight piece to learn more and access the research article, and check out the author’s blog post on Forbes for further insights on leadership strategy for scaleups.