This initiative by the Madrid City Council aims to consolidate, promote, and retain talent in the video game industry. The Development Center of Madrid in Game will host 50 startups in the second edition of the Entrepreneurship Program, with 20 of them advancing from the previous edition or extending their stay. Over the course of six months, these entrepreneurs will develop their companies with the goal of accelerating them into solvent and reference projects for the sector. 

Adapting to the different projects based on their maturity stage, each of the companies included in the Entrepreneurship Program will be distributed across three phases: pre-incubation, incubation, and acceleration, to align with their company's lifecycle stage. With this project, the Madrid City Council aims to attract, promote, retain, and boost talent and generate direct employment in the video game industry.

The participating startups will receive personalized advice, support for fundraising, presence at events, and support from experts in three pillars: business, product, and people. Similarly, they will have workspace facilities including state-of-the-art sound, video, virtual reality, and augmented reality labs, as well as other cutting-edge tools to help them generate their ideas, both from a technical and business perspective. One of the most ambitious incubation and acceleration programs in Europe, Madrid In Game and its Entrepreneurship Program, renamed for the second call as the Start IN Up Program, becomes a benchmark accelerator for companies in the video game industry.

Thirty new startups will join this II edition of the program from different areas of the sector. Of the selected companies, 77% are based in Madrid, 20 are video game developers, 10 are related to or belong to the Esports sector, and the remaining ones focus on technologies related to the industry. 

Twenty companies from the first call of the Entrepreneurship Program continue at Madrid In Game to continue working on their projects by changing their maturity phase. The II edition of the Entrepreneurship Program, which began on September 18, is aimed at enhancing, attracting, and elevating talent in the sector. On September 29, an opening event will be held at the Development Center of Madrid in Game, attended by various political figures from the Madrid City Council. This program will host more than 200 companies over the next three years.

Entrepreneurship Program: Successes of the first call

Many of the startups participating in the first edition achieved great success during their six months at the Development Center. Nware, a game streaming service, signed an agreement with Microsoft to offer Xbox and Activision games in their application; Clivi, a gaming ecosystem for players, streamers, and professionals, managed to close a funding round of €392,000; Second World, on the other hand, launched Ball Guys Furry Road, their first mobile game.

The accelerator also generated synergies among the different companies, highlighting the Sinfrenos League event, one of the most important Rocket League championships in Spain, which, organized by HaveFun Gamers, brought together other firms such as Latido Shop, Conwiro, Algon Games, Wiper Gaming, or Beetested for a day of esports at the Esports Center of the Campus del Videojuego. Madrid City Council's Councilor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Ángel Niño, celebrates the launch of this II edition of the Madrid In Game Entrepreneurship Program, an initiative that helps create "a community around Madrid In Game to foster the talent of startups and entrepreneurs." "Especially in the early stages of a business idea, where more guidance and support are needed," he added, emphasizing that the Madrid City Council seeks to be "a support for all those who innovate while creating wealth and jobs in Madrid."

"The participation figures from the first edition make us very optimistic about the projection of this program and the return that startups get after their time at the Campus del Videojuego," notes the Madrid City Council's Councilor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Download