Vigo's startTIC incubator begins six-month programme with thirty mostly AI-based projects

The story so far, in brief; the legwork, and the full article, stay with the original outlet.

Thirty projects started a six-month programme this week at startTIC, a high-tech incubator in Vigo backed by the Consorcio de la Zona Franca de Vigo, the Cámara de Comercio de Pontevedra, Vigo y Vilagarcía and the technology centre Gradiant. The budget is 3.5 million euros, 60% of it co-financed by FEDER funds through the Fundación INCYDE. Eight in ten of the selected projects use some form of AI, and about 20% work on cybersecurity and data sovereignty. Another 20% pair AI with sensors for maritime uses such as fishing, aquaculture and port communications.

The cohort includes AQUIAX, an O Porriño deeptech building AI, vision and robotics systems that can characterise individual fish and automate tasks such as sorting and vaccination; edgeContinuum, a Universidade de Vigo spin-off whose sovereign cloud platform keeps working on disconnected sites like ships; InDigital, launched by the engineering firm GOC with Lobera.ai; and EcoVuela, which builds wildfire risk models from drone, LiDAR, satellite and weather data. Fourteen projects come from Vigo, with others from elsewhere in Galicia, León and Portugal. Only about a third are already constituted companies, so for most of the cohort the business part is still mostly prospective.

The teams are working temporarily from the Zona Franca business park in Bouzas. startTIC will eventually move to the VgoTIC Global HUB at López Mora, where Zona Franca approved over 44 million euros of works in May, including about 4.44 million for the incubator's building and 39.67 million for three others, one of which will house Indra's future aerospace and defence centre.