More than 100,000 jobs created, $24.75 billion raised and four unicorns: our latest Impact Report captures the impact of alumni entrepreneurship over the past 25 years. Nearly 3,800 alumni have become founders, with Lazada, Letgo, Perk and Multiverse Computing among the ventures reaching unicorn status. These milestones build on a long entrepreneurial tradition at IESE, which became the first European business school to introduce entrepreneurship into its MBA curriculum in 1974–75 and established the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center in 1998. Find out more.​​​​

IESE’s Entrepreneurship Department welcomes two new Assistant Professors, Anne-Sophie Sabbatucci and Marta Villamor. Anne-Sophie Sabbatucci studies entrepreneurship as a force for societal change, focusing on how entrepreneurs build ecosystems, mobilize collective action and address challenges in contexts of adversity. Marta Villamor’s research lies at the intersection of entrepreneurship and strategy, exploring how entrepreneurs develop ideas about value, and how interactions with mentors and investors shape learning and strategic decisions. Welcome to IESE, Anne-Sophie and Marta!

IESE alumni Sparsh Agarwal and Ernesto Fernandez met during their MBA and went on to co-found SUNO, an energy startup helping commercial and industrial companies reduce electricity costs through energy management. Their journey has involved a major pivot – from an initial idea around EV charging and second-life batteries to solving a more urgent customer need. In our latest Entrepreneurship Blog interview, they share what customer feedback taught them about finding the right problem to solve, the challenges of building across cultures and markets, and how the IESE entrepreneurship ecosystem supported their journey.

IESE returns as an ecosystem partner of the Barcelona Deep Tech Summit, taking place 3–5 November 2026. As part of this year’s agenda, IESE will contribute with the panel Beyond Innovation Theater: Corporate Venturing Squads for Deep Tech Deployment, moderated by IESE's Josemaria Siota. The discussion will examine how corporate venturing squads can combine capabilities such as market access, industrial assets, technical expertise and investment to identify, test and scale emerging technologies, moving corporate venturing beyond experimentation towards tangible business impact. Find out more and register here.

A new year gets underway at IESE’s School of Founders this September, with two programs helping founders tackle what comes next as their companies grow. Keep Scaling began on 16 September, bringing Foundations of Scaling alumni back together for continued learning and peer exchange. On 30 September, a new cohort will start the nine-month Foundations of Scaling program, designed for founders moving from startup to scaleup. Both programs help founders grow alongside their companies, while learning from peers facing many of the same challenges. Find out more. 

What does it take to build and finance innovative businesses in Africa? On 28 September, Professor Yuliya Snihur will explore this question with Ayodeji Balogun, Group CEO of AFEX, and Uyi Oigiagbe of Blink Impact (MBA ’23), discussing how entrepreneurs connect infrastructure, services and capital to unlock new opportunities. Organized with the MBA Africa Business Club, IESE Africa Initiative and IESE Alumni, the event takes Spiro’s recent $215 million investment round as a starting point for exploring Africa’s evolving investment landscape. Find out more and register here.

How do competitors influence a company’s strategic decisions? New research by Professor Thomas Klueter and co-authors examines how firms respond to rivals when pursuing new strategic resources. Drawing on data from global biopharmaceutical companies, the study finds that competitors’ actions provide both information and competitive pressure, shaping whether firms acquire resources externally or build capabilities in-house. The findings shed new light on how herding and competitive dynamics influence decisions about the resources companies need to pursue new opportunities. Find out more.

A recent IESE report by the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, developed as part of the European Innovation Council Scaling Club, explores how public procurement can better support Europe’s deep-tech scaleups. While EU public procurement represents 16% of GDP, only around 10% is spent on innovation. The study identifies barriers including a preference for established suppliers, fragmented procedures and weak links from R&D and pilots to commercialization. It calls for faster procurement, stronger R&D-to-market pathways, more harmonized standards and greater joint buying across the EU. Find out more.