The Valencian startup Q'omer BioActive Ingredients S.L., located in the University of Valencia Science Park, will be a shareholder of the distribution company, which at the beginning of 2018 will deliver to Colombia its commercial offer, that is, bioactive ingredients and raw materials present in natural, healthy and sustainable products. For the CEO of the company, Juan David Escobar, "beginning our growth phase with this distributor is the most remarkable result of my stay in the Latin American country thanks to the International Landing Program of the Cyted-Agroinncuba network".
Under the mentoring of the director of the BioPacífico Park, Edwind Giraldo, the head of Q'omer Bioactive Ingredients has spent two weeks visiting part of the business network, as well as innovation centers in Bogotá, Cali and Manizales. "Another attraction of this experience has been to learn about R & D projects from the University of Caldas (Manizales), the Catholic University (Manizales), the National University of Colombia (Manizales campus), the University of the Andes (Bogotá) and the Tadeo Lozano University (Bogotá)", has underlined Juan David Escobar.
According to Escobar, the advantages of this international landing program for which he was selected last October have been fundamentally "the opportunity to be in a destination country in which I am interested and the generation of a commercial and business strategy agenda that difficulty I could have closed from Spain. In this sense, the attendance at the presentation of the Colombian National Competitiveness Report 2017-2018 "allowed me to know in which situation the sectors of my interest are."
Escobar estimates that coming into contact with the productive environment of Colombia "will benefit 7,200 families at risk of exclusion, which come from the Colombian armed and social conflict. Our aim is to value the chains of ingredients they grow and add them to healthy consumer products with high added value".
Social entrepreneurship
"In parallel," he says, "I have been able to transfer my experience as a social enterprise to entrepreneurs in Colombia". In this line, Juan David Escobar insists that "the business focus of Colombian incubators can not be purely financial, they should only support companies that generate a return on three levels: economic, social and environmental."
"Otherwise, 30 years from now we can not have well-being. The circular economy, the green economy and the bioeconomy must be imperative for science parks and for any business model", the head of the social enterprise Q'omer has insisted on.
The Agrpinncuba network launched this year, with the support of the Cyted Program, the Landing pilot program aimed at supporting the internationalization of spin-offs and startups in the agri-food sector in the Ibero-American and European markets. "This initiative pursues to be an opportunity for entrepreneurs in this economic area to access new markets, while developing their business on an international scale", the responsible for the network, Juan Antonio Raga has explained.
In addition to Q'omer Bioactive Ingredients, the companies Alluagro (Brazil), Prevenzia(Chile) and Abeja Maestra (Argentina) have also been selected to participate in this International Landing.