Valencia, tech city: the metropolis on the rise

Ten years ago, saying "I'm starting my company in Valencia" raised eyebrows in Madrid and Barcelona. Not anymore. Between an ecosystem that has passed 1,500 startups, an accelerator ranked in the European top 20 and a Volkswagen gigafactory rising thirty kilometres from the centre, Spain's third city has carved out a genuine place on the continent's tech map. Here is the state of play, with the numbers to back it up.

The numbers behind the shift

According to Startup Valencia, the association that represents the sector, the Valencian ecosystem passed the 1,500-startup mark in 2024 (1,517 to be exact, up more than 15% year on year), generating over 20,000 jobs. The momentum has continued since, driven by a still-reasonable cost of living, a well-connected airport, fibre everywhere and a quality of life that does the rest: the sun-beach-bike combo genuinely weighs on the relocation decisions of founders and skilled remote workers.

The city plays its part: the Invest in València programme, run by the city council and the Chamber of Commerce, courts foreign companies, and the municipality has beefed up its early-stage support, with a strengthened public venture-capital envelope for seed-stage startups. As a result, dozens of international companies have chosen Valencia over the past two years.

The Marina, the beating heart

The symbolic heart of this transformation beats on the port. Marina de Empresas, the campus founded by Juan Roig, is home to the Lanzadera accelerator - 19th in the Financial Times' European ranking in 2026 - the EDEM school of entrepreneurs and the Angels fund. Its latest cohort welcomed 120 startups at once. Around it, the old dock has filled with coworking spaces, agencies and tech events that make the Marina an open-air business district, Mediterranean edition: you pitch on a terrace and celebrate funding rounds facing the sea. We have prepared a full guided tour of Lanzadera in a dedicated article.

Sagunt, the giant industrial bet

Thirty kilometres to the north, it is a different scale entirely: PowerCo, the Volkswagen Group's battery subsidiary, is completing one of the largest gigafactories in Europe at Sagunt. The first battery cells are due off the lines in September 2026; the plant will employ around 800 people by the end of the year and 1,600 at full capacity, not counting the thousands of indirect jobs from the supplier park settling around it. First phase: 20 GWh of capacity by 2028. For the region, it is the biggest industrial investment in its history, and a magnet for engineers, technicians and subcontractors from across Europe.

A global fixture in October

Every autumn, the ecosystem gathers at VDS, the Valencia Digital Summit, in the futuristic setting of the City of Arts and Sciences. The 2025 edition generated 26 million euros of economic impact; the 2026 edition, on 21 and 22 October, expects more than 12,000 attendees from 120 countries. It is THE moment when Valencia shows itself to the tech world, and a golden chance to network without getting on a plane: our VDS 2026 guide tells you everything.

And for you, concretely?

If you work in tech, Valencia ticks a lot of boxes: skilled jobs multiplying, salaries on the rise (still below London or Dublin levels, but the cost-of-living gap more than makes up for it), a dense international community and coworking spaces in every neighbourhood. If you are building a project, the local ecosystem offers a rare continuum: training at EDEM, acceleration at Lanzadera, funding from Angels or the funds orbiting VDS. And if you simply want to go self-employed in the sun, start with our guide to the autónomo status.

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Sources

• Startup Valencia - ecosystem figures and annual reports (startupvalencia.org)
• PowerCo / Volkswagen Group - Sagunt gigafactory announcements
• Invest in València - Valencia City Council and Chamber of Commerce
• Financial Times - "Europe's Leading Start-Up Hubs 2026" ranking

Information verified in July 2026. Figures evolve; check the official sources for the latest data. The Daily Valencia is an AI-assisted publication with human review.