The business incubator specialized in the blue economy will have a new injection of 1.5 million euros of financing from the European Regional Development Fund through the Incyde Foundation
The final resolution, published in the BOE this Tuesday, represents important support for the project developed by the Cádiz Consortium
The work on the Base Zone recycled maritime container building in the outer industrial estate began in summer after the laying of the first stone by the Minister of Finance
Incubazul already has 23 startups incubated, eight from the first entry window in April and 15 in the most recent one last week
Cadiz, October 27, 2022
The Free Zone of Cádiz has received a new allocation of 1.5 million euros of financing from the European Regional Development Fund, through the Incyde Foundation, for a total investment of 1.9 million euros for the Incubazul Blue Economy incubator that the Cádiz Consortium has launched and which will be permanently housed in the recycled maritime container building in the Base Zone, in the outer polygon of the Free Zone.
The Official State Gazette of this Tuesday, October 25, published the final resolution of the Cameral Institute Foundation for the Creation and Development of the Company (INCYDE), which with this new injection once again confirms the goodness of the project, which in less than a year has already hosted 23 startups, some of them of great originality, business maturity and with great potential.
The State delegate in the Free Zone of Cádiz, Fran González, has expressed satisfaction with the resolution, "not only because of the economic contribution, which is very important, but also because it confirms that we are working on the right path, that the incubator is achieving optimal stability and speed and that the organizations involved see us as a reference in the innovation and Blue Economy sector."
"Our objective, although it may sound ambitious, is twofold. On the one hand, to serve as a reference for the necessary change of the exterior industrial estate of the Cádiz Free Trade Zone and, on the other, to be an important focus in the blue economy sector, even more so in a province where the possibilities for this sector are infinite," González said.
Incubazul is operating in the Europa building in the Fiscal Area of the Free Trade Zone until the final work is completed and already has 23 projects linked to the Blue Economy in incubation, eight of them accessed in the first entry window that was held in April and the rest just a week ago in the II Entry Batch.
All of them represent technology-based concepts and services that can be applied in the multiple subsectors covered by the Blue Economy. In the second call for applications, projects ranging from the creation of tuna leather through a vegetable tanning process have been accepted; the certification of marine biology courses within the framework of recreational diving; the development of smart catamarans for autonomous navigation and ocean data collection; a platform to give greater prominence to women who work in the Blue Economy; going through the management of underwater warnings with the exploitation of a device to locate divers; the manufacture and sale of clothing made from marine waste; the use of invasive algae for the agricultural or cosmetic industry; to the construction of homes in marine containers, among other sectors.
8 projects assigned to the first call of the program were already working on Incubazul, such as Smart Shipping that promotes the optimization of marine routes, using real-time information on currents to achieve fuel savings of 3-10%; Tudestino Sostenible, initiative to bring sustainability to tourism companies in Andalusia; o Futuralga, dedicated to the manufacture of sustainable packaging for the fruit and vegetable sector, through the valorization of waste such as macroalgae collected from the shores of beaches.
The work of the Incubazul Base Zone on the old Ibérica Aga plot in the outer industrial estate of the Free Trade Zone began last July with the laying of the first stone by the Minister of Finance and Public Function, María Jesús Montero. The property will have a total constructed area of 1,951.33 m2 and 1,415.73 m2 of terraces and open spaces and is made up of three floors in height, in addition to the ground floor, and is being executed by the company Díaz Cubero, awarded the work with a budget of 2,311,687.48 euros (VAT not included) and a completion period of 14 months.
The Incubazul High Technology Incubator is a project that was born thanks to the support of the European Union, which co-finances it, through the INCYDE Foundation, 80% by the ERDF within the Pluriregional Operational Program 2014-2020 within axis 3: Improve the Competitiveness of SMEs, Thematic Objective 3 Improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises, and investment priority 3 Promotion of entrepreneurship, in particular, facilitating the economic exploitation of new ideas, and promoting the creation of new companies, as well through nurseries.