Beginnings are never easy. We know that... and to get to the top, it takes patience and hard work. Meritocracy is one of the pillars of our philosophy. But what does it consist of? Very simple: at IMMUNE we believe in achieving goals through hard work. These are just a few examples of young people who dared to take a step forward to change the world.
Raúl Verdú and Raúl Torres founded PLD Space, the company that wants to take on Elon Musk in the space race. Founded in 2011, PLD Space is the first and only Spanish company dedicated to the manufacture of low-cost space launchers. At just 23 and 24 years old, respectively, the two friends, who had met in the library of the university where he was studying, seized a real and clear business opportunity that "required a lot of work and private investment", as Torres explains, adding "we could achieve both capabilities". Today his team is made up of young aeronautical, industrial and telecommunications engineers and they are aiming for the top.
Luis Hernández and Pepe Domínguez founded in 2003 the world's second largest download site after Google Play: Uptodown. Both founders, computer engineering students at the University of Malaga, wanted to publish software applications and download files for Windows, but they were not convinced by any of the existing platforms. So they decided to set up their own, reaching 1.2 billion unique users in 2017. In the first year, the staff consisted of just the two founders and one employee. The two were forced to learn how to do everything: find the programmes, talk to the developers, find the advertisers...
David Gascón and Alicia Asín created Libelium, one of the most successful cases in the implementation of the Internet of Things. From three ambassadors in 2007, the company has grown to 57, almost all of them engineers, and has a portfolio of more than 50 clients, including IBM, Telefónica, Philips, Siemens, Intel, Vodafone and Deutsche Bahn. But how was Libelium born? It began to take shape from Gastón's final year project and, since then, they have not stopped growing. They export 90% of their products to 75 countries and in 2015 they had a turnover of 4.2 million euros.
Valeria Castro, with a lot of effort, has managed to carve out a space for herself in a "man's world": the world of video games. Castro is co-founder of the company Platonic Games, a video game development startup focused on mobile phones. Although Valeria initially focused her career on advertising and public relations, she ended up doing a master's degree in computer graphics, games and virtual reality. From there she started developing videogames with the help of the graduated in software engineering Álvaro Gutiérrez, his partner.
Daniel Solís stood up to hackers with the company Blueliv. The startup, which specialises in online cybersecurityhas large companies and banks as clients. It has also been recognised as one of the best ICT startups in the world by DT, Singtel, Orange and Telefónica, the four largest telecommunications operators. In addition to solving cyber-attacks, Blueliv's tasks include prevention. Its strength lies in the development of preventive and proactive solutions, detecting behavioural patterns to anticipate cyber-attacks.