Five Spanish start-ups shortlisted for best start-up at DISRUPTORES Innovation Awards 2026

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The sixth DISRUPTORES Innovation Awards will hand out their prizes on 15 October at the Palacio Neptuno in Madrid, and the shortlist for best start-up or scaleup is down to five: Legit.Health, Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech, Shakers, Embat and Umoa. An editorial team first picks 50 finalists across ten categories, then an outside jury of 15 people chooses the winners, which is a reasonable division of labour.

The five cover a fairly wide spread. Legit.Health, led by Andy Aguilar, sells CE-marked software that reads a phone photo and assesses more than 323 skin conditions, and this year signed up Polish healthcare group Lux Med to take it abroad. Qilimanjaro, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center spinoff run by Marta Estarellas, is behind the centre's third quantum computer and is currently raising a round of about €50 million. Shakers, founded in 2021, matches companies with freelance tech, AI, design and marketing talent, and is spending a €14 million Series A led by Partech and Kfund partly on a new Chamberí office. Embat, started by former JP Morgan executives, automates corporate treasury and raised €30 million in a round led by Cathay Innovation.

Then there is Umoa, a natural cosmetics brand Mafalda Soto created in 2021 to fund her NGO Beyond Suncare, which fights skin cancer and discrimination faced by people with albinism in Africa. It sells mostly online, is preparing to enter pharmacies, and gives 10% of its profits to the NGO. Quantum computing and sun cream will compete for the same trophy.