Banco Santander has a new global community to help the most innovative and promising projects grow and create jobs.

The initiative will help Santander X's top startups and scaleups get the advice, training, capital, clientèle, talent, networking and other valuable resources they need to grow.

Madrid, 23 November 2021.
Banco Santander, through its Santander X initiative, has unveiled 'Santander X 100'. It is global community of winning entrepreneurial projects from its challenges and awards that promotes innovation as a driver of productivity, economic growth and employment.

Santander X 100 is part of the bank’s Santander X entrepreneur ecosystem. It's a new way for top, advanced-stage startups and scaleups from different countries to network and get the advice, training, capital, clientèle, talent and other valuable resources they need to keep growing.

It will be rolled out first with enterprises from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US. It’s yet another Santander X initiative through which the bank lends a hand to entrepreneurs at such different stages as ‘Explorer’ (a programme to turn ideas into projects and solutions), ‘Prepare to Launch – Babson’ (to support startups looking to enter the market) and the global challenges and awards that applaud the most innovative startups and scaleups.

The community's first start-ups are Ebers (Argentina); Sumá, Taqé and Wconnect (Brazil); Lexgo (Chile); MotionMiners (Germany); Cuéntame, Finloop, Social Piper, Tandem and Xilinat (Mexico); Currency Alliance, FILMPEDIA, Fundeen, HumanITcare, Triditive and Woza Labs (Spain); and HF Capital and Stoke (US). Its scaleups are VU Security (Argentina); Alyne and Breeze Technologies (Germany); BEDU (Mexico); Canard Drones, Connecting Visions, Rated Power, Scoobic Urban Mobility and Zapiens Technologies (Spain); CoGo, MyDocSafe and Plastecowood (UK); and Whyline (US).

According to Nuria Pastor, co-founder of HumanltCare, a Santander Tomorrow Challenge winner, “as with Santander X in the past, our experience with Santander X 100 is proving extremely positive. The key benefit of the community is the creation of a network, ecosystem and lobby alongside other member companies with similar skills, challenges and expectations.”

Natalia Skwarek of Currency Alliance says “being part of the Santander X 100 community enables us to reach a greater number of potential customers thanks to the visibility it gives us globally. What's more, we hope to get to work with Banco Santander and its partners.”

Leonardo Barrientos, CEO of another Santander X Tomorrow Challenge winner Lexgo, says “we hope Santander X 100 will give us the chance to meet entrepreneurs with similar ambitions to see if we can spur growth by working together. We’re getting a lot out of communities of entrepreneurs that work side by side to achieve their aims.”

In the coming years, Santander X 100 aims to accept projects from 11 countries. To be eligible, companies must have sound finances, a robust business model, an innovative value proposition, a well-organized team, a sustainable and progressive product roadmap, and direct and indirect competitor analysis.

For Santander Universities Global Head Javier Roglá, “this community gives its members a fantastic opportunity to share experiences, widen their network, scale their businesses and help themselves and the other companies prosper. We hope it will add value to their innovative propositions and create a positive and global impact”. 

As part of its entrepreneur support programme, the bank launched Santander X Global Challenge | Finance For All, a global initiative for startups and scaleups with innovative, scalable solutions that will open up banking products and services to everyone. Its best projects will go on to become part of Santander X 100.

Banco Santander and its support for higher education

Banco Santander, the leader in responsible banking, is firmly committed to progress and inclusive sustainable growth. Through Santander Universities, it has been a pioneering stalwart of higher education for 25 years, standing out among the world's financial institutions. The bank has committed more than EUR 2 billion and awarded over 630,000 scholarships and grants to students, professionals SMEs since launching the programme.