Creand Accelera brings together over 130 entrepreneurs and investors at an innovation summit during the Women’s Alpine Skiing World Cup
Creand Accelera, the entrepreneurship and innovation platform, organised Friday’s Creand Accelera Summit, an event focusing on entrepreneurship and innovation within the framework of the Women’s Alpine Skiing World Cup. It brought together over 130 representatives from the field of startups, venture capital and private equity, private investors and other domestic and international institutions in the public and private sectors.
The Creand Accelera Summit sought to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem while projecting Andorra as a hub for innovation, investment and talent by harnessing the importance of the Women’s Alpine Skiing World Cup and its international reach.
The summit was held in El Tarter and it welcomed key players from the world of entrepreneurship, including 26 startups involved in the different programmes fostered by the bank, 30 public and private entities from the sector and several private investors. They all enjoyed a programme that combined training, participation, unique experiences and activities linked to the World Cup.
Santiago de Larrea, Head of Innovation at Creand Crèdit Andorrà, highlighted that “at Creand Accelera we seek to promote startups in Andorra and Europe with high growth potential and put them in contact with investors interested in the entrepreneurship sector, thus jointly creating innovative solutions with an impact on Andorra”.
One of the main aims was to foster networking, resulting in the prioritisation of one-to-one sessions, including the Gondola Talks, a creative meeting area inside the cabin of a cable car on the slopes of El Tarter that brought together investors and companies.
There were first-rate speeches such as the one given by Seena Amidi, Managing Partner EMEA at Plug and Play, who told the story of how Plug and Play began in a building in Palo Alto and became a global benchmark for innovation that drives unicorns and connects startups with large corporations. Philipp Gneiting, Partner and Managing Director of Plug and Play and an expert in open innovation and collaboration between startups and large corporations, also took part, together with Mathieu Carenzo, a professor from the Entrepreneurial Initiative department at IESE Business School, among other speakers. They offered an international vision of open innovation and investment.
The Creand Accelera Summit also provided the stage to present and welcome the startups selected for Creand’s Andorra Open Valley programme, the first Andorran acceleration programme with a European scope, fostered in partnership with SETAP 365 and Caldea and sponsored by FEDA, Andorra Business and Ingeni Coworking.
The attendees moved on to the après-ski in L’Abarset to bring this event of a distinctly networking nature to an end in a relaxing environment.