We have the law to be born. We still lack the law to grow.

When Ley 28/2022 came into effect in January 2023, Spain did something few European countries had done before: it acknowledged in the Official State Bulletin (BOE) that emerging companies have their own logic and deserve a tailor-made framework. That gesture mattered more than it seemed. Over three years later, it's time for an honest assessment.

One that's honest without empty flattery, but also mindful of what's at stake. The most tangible progress lies in the equity tax regime. Before the law, stock options exemption for employees was capped at 12,000 euros annually, a figure making the tool virtually useless for retaining senior staff. The law raised that limit to 50,000 euros and, more importantly, deferred taxation until the shares became liquid.

Prior to the law, an employee could receive equity in an unlisted company and be forced to pay taxes on a potential gain they could not yet access. This tool was disincentivizing exactly what it was supposed to incentivize. This has been rectified. The carried interest regime also improved: fund managers now pay tax on their gains at 50% of the taxable base of IRPF, bringing the Spanish treatment closer to that of other European ecosystems.

For a country that for years saw its best managers looking to Luxembourg, this is no minor detail. Data from the 2026 Spain Ecosystem Report, compiled by Dealroom in collaboration with K Fund, BBVA Spark, Endeavor, and ENISA, among others, confirm the trend: in 2025, Spanish start-ups raised 3.1 billion euros in venture capital, placing Spain as the eighth European tech ecosystem by value.

The total value of the ecosystem exceeds 125,000 million euros, 2.3 times more than in 2020. The framework matters, and the numbers are moving in the right direction. To benefit from the law, certification by ENISA is required, a process evaluating the innovative and scalable nature of the project. Over 2,100 startups have been certified, but the system still adds friction where the law promised agility.

Full digitalization of procedures is the next obvious reform. And the temporary definition of a start-up, five years as a general limit and seven in biotech or energy, deserves review for sectors with longer development cycles. The most important argument in this reflection, paradoxically, is the least present in political debate.

The Startup Law was designed for the moment of birth. The next reform should be designed for the moment of growth. This is not an exclusive concern of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In an act marking the 40th anniversary of Spain's accession to the European Union, Spain's president of the European Investment Bank, Nadia Calviño, summed up the challenge with a sentence that should also serve as a roadmap for our country: "Europe needs to scale up faster and faster."

This is precisely the next challenge for Spain. And this challenge is worth a lot of money. Scale-ups in Spain—companies that have validated their business model, grow more than 20% annually, and have an international vocation—already generate nearly 9,800 million euros a year and employ over 65,000 people. They represent just 0.7% of the Spanish business fabric.

The growth potential is therefore enormous. The structural problem is known to those of us working in this ecosystem: once a certified start-up exceeds five years or 10 million in turnover, it falls into regulatory orphanhood. It is taxed like any other large company, competes for talent without the equity tools it had in earlier stages, and must scale without instruments designed for its stage.

61% of Spanish scale-ups identify regulatory challenges as the main barrier to growth, according to the 2024 Scale-up Ecosystem report by EsTech and Deloitte. This is not a complaint. It's a signal that there is real demand to grow more, and that the framework can become the catalyst to make it possible. The National Scalability Plan, spearheaded by EsTech and Adigital with the support of organizations such as K Fund, SpainCap, BME, Endeavor, and Wayra, has been articulating concrete proposals in five areas: expanding the impact of the Startup Law to companies in growth stages, diversifying sources of financing, attracting and retaining talent, strengthening Spain's leadership in Europe, and building a shared narrative about our technological champions.

Among the most direct measures: extending the benefits of certification to companies that have exceeded the current deadlines, creating new tax schemes that incentivize growth in advanced stages, and promoting access to Spanish capital markets for these companies. SpainCap, representing more than 90% of private capital entities in Spain, has emphasized that having a robust scale-up fabric is essential for the country's competitiveness and that this plan is a key guide for addressing the concrete challenges these companies face.

These are not corporate requests. They are economic policy tools aligned with a priority now shared by major European institutions. And they have concrete references: the EU Inc. regime, the European Tech Champions Initiative of the BEI, and the Commission's Startup and Scaleup Strategy, published in May 2025, which for the first time treats the full company cycle, from birth to consolidation, as a continental priority.

Spain has the opportunity to lead that conversation in Europe. For that, it first needs to have it at home. The data make this clear. In 2025, operations above 50 million euros represented only 4% of rounds, but they concentrated 44% of the capital invested, very much deserving attention.