Entrepreneurship Initiatives at IE University

Find out how you can put your degree knowledge to the test and develop a start-up while at IE University.

IE University was born as a start-up, and because of that, we pride ourselves on shaping and developing an entrepreneurial hub in the heart of Spain.

Entrepreneurship is a growing interest, and start-up dreams are becoming more realistic. Whether you’re studying business, visual design, or law, we believe that innovation and entrepreneurship are a vital part of IE education. Our students carry this sense of entrepreneurship with them even after graduation as 25% of our alumni have started their own business. Check out these entrepreneurship initiatives available at IE University that could help you develop your own start-up.

Venture Lab accelerator

The Venture Lab serves to train and mentor teams to explore, validate, and develop ready-to-launch start-up ventures.

IE’s Venture Lab is a program that is open to all IE students and alumni. It is also an elective within the International MBA program. It gives teams hands-on experience in the world of high impact entrepreneurship. This means that their ideas have been thoroughly developed to the point where there is validation data (metrics) that shows customer interest, user engagement, and revenue potential from future clients.

IE students and alumni will launch their own ventures with the support of mentors. The mentor will be an entrepreneur, investor, or businessperson that can provide a real-world perspective to the project, counterbalancing ambition and vision with hard-learned lessons from the business world. Students and alumni will also attend a series of workshops to further develop their ventures. Teams will then get to begin incubating their start-ups at Area 31.

Check out how the Venture Lab helped this group of students succeed:

Venture Days

Venture Days are a platform for finalists from the accelerator program, as well as any other students or alumni, to pitch their project in front of international investors.

IE Venture Days are international tech conferences arranged both face-to-face and in a virtual format. This event is open to current students, alumni, and external entrepreneurs. We place the whole entrepreneurial ecosystem in one room to create magic!

Check out IE’s next Venture Day.

Area 31

Area 31 is the centre of all entrepreneurial activity at IE. This space was created to provide our young visionaries a place to develop their disruptive start-up ideas.

Teams who have been accepted into IE’s start-up accelerator, the Venture Lab, work in Area 31, while receiving training, mentoring and resources to validate their ideas and launch. A select number of start-ups, created by IE alumni, also work in Area 31, contributing their experience and skills to the overall ecosystem.

Get an inside look at Area 31:

EnlightED talks

The educational sector is ever-changing and always growing. As we strive to reinvent how we conduct our education, we need to stay up to date with technological developments. This is where start-ups are important in the advances of education. We need creative minds to challenge our view of education and improve our practices. The enlightED event is a yearly conference created by IE, Telefonica Foundation, South Summit and Fundacion Santillana. Together we are putting the spotlight on the whole education sector, something that has become even more relevant after 2020.

Check out some insights from world-class experts in education, technology, and innovation.

If you have clever ideas and an entrepreneurial spirit, check out how IE University can help your dreams come true.