“If anyone has been able to get out of crises, they have always been the people who undertake, so now more than ever we have to join forces and not decline.” José Bayón, CEO of Enisa, he is clear about it. The key to facing and emerging stronger from the crisis caused by Covid-19 are those who undertake and their innovative spirit. He is also hopeful about the aid package from Europe that will mobilize 140 billion to revive the Spanish economy and believes that it is very likely that this funding could lead to an improvement in Enisa's funding lines. Intelectium, we had the opportunity to interview the top representative of Enisa, José Bayón, with whom we were able to talk about very interesting topics such as the characteristics of Enisa's funding, its application and achievement deadlines, Enisa in the context of Covid, the sectors it finances and the importance of incorporating female talent into entrepreneurship.
Enisa funding features
Enisa supports innovation through participatory loans, and has been channeled more than 1 billion since 2004. Enisa participatory loan it does not require guarantees or guarantees and has long grace periods and returns. It is a participatory loan that does not dilute capital and that participates in the benefits, if any, of the financed company. Being a loan granted by a public company, it also has a quality certification effect on the companies that obtain it.
Covid Context - How has Covid affected Enisa?
“Covid has been an extraordinary situation that has made us put more effort into two areas: first we had to approve an instruction to renegotiate loans that we had already granted to entrepreneurs. Specifically, 30% of the companies that we have in the viva portfolio have requested it from us and we have been able to give a positive response to all of them. On the other hand, we set to work so that the Council of Ministers will approve the budget for Enisa 2020 on June 16 so that we can begin to mobilize more funding for companies,” explains Bayón. Enisa has received many more loan requests than last year, in the words of Bayón: “In June we had twice as many requests as last year, which was already a historic year for Enisa since it broke the record for requests”.
Deadlines for applying for and obtaining Enisa
Due to the wave of requests that Enisa is receiving, there are entrepreneurs who complain about the response times from the Enisa request to its formalization. Enisa is aware of it, but they evoke balance and patience: “We are receiving many more requests and we are responding to all of them. We have responded to all the renegotiations. We are not a particularly slow entity, but rather the opposite. They always ask us for faster, more money, but we also have to keep in mind that this is a public instrument that depends on everyone's taxes, so we always have to reach a balance.” On average, it takes about 4 months from the request to the formalization of the loan. In short, “we are improving our processes, although it is also true that we have more requests and now we also have an opportunity with the European Government's Recovery Plan”.
European Funds
Bayón is very optimistic about the Financing Plan for recovery promoted by the European Government. He considers it a fundamental element and one that will make a clear difference with previous crises experienced, such as the one in 2008. In total, 140 billion euros will be injected into Spain and it is now important that this money be distributed well. In this regard, public companies such as Enisa, ICO, Red.es and CDTI they have to play an important role among the catalytic bodies for this type of funding to companies. According to Bayón, Enisa “expects to have a little more budget next year. After all, Enisa is very well considered as the reference entity for financing entrepreneurship and innovative SMEs, but, ultimately, it is the Government that decides the distribution of investment”.
Enisa funding by sector
If anything has become clear, throughout the interview with José Bayón, it is that Enisa is a generalist financing instrument and seeks to finance all innovative sectors of entrepreneurship and SMEs, despite restrictions in the financial sector, with the exception of fintech platforms, and real estate. However, Bayón took the opportunity to highlight “Europe's own guidelines on the promotion of the economy towards sustainability and digitalization, for Enisa it is also important to encourage sectors to go there to solve social challenges.” Spain must be able to diversify its economy. As was the case at the time with bricks and now it is happening to tourism, it is important that its impact on the Spanish economy is not so high, although this does not mean that they are no longer important to the territory, but they do have to be complemented and balanced with others. We delve into the restrictions of the real estate sector. Enisa cannot finance activities such as the promotion or sale of real estate, according to Bayón, but it can finance the platforms that connect the parties or, when asked about the trend towards Off Site Construction, “what is built in a factory, which can be considered a manufacturing company”. However, there are some issues where regulation and regulation need to be clarified. “Sometimes we get projects where we need to have a clearer regulatory framework to start financing and that's why we can't finance them right now.”
Incorporation of female talent into entrepreneurship
According to the GEM Report, promoted by Enisa, it shows that in Spain we are above other countries in terms of the presence of women's entrepreneurship, but despite this, Bayón believes that we need to keep moving forward. If we look at the area of the boards of directors and the CEOs of companies, that is where we see an even abysmal difference between female and male presence and this cannot be the case, “otherwise we are losing the talent of half the population, both socially and economically, therefore, at the level of Government such as Enisa, it is an issue that worries us and that we are trying to promote”.
Enisa Growth Line, dichotomy between innovation and the weight of history
La Línea Enisa Growth (Up to 1.5 million euros) is a line of funding aimed at SMEs that decide to advance through innovation. For emerging projects that have just been born, there are the lines; Enisa Young Entrepreneurs (Up to 75,000 euros) and Enisa Entrepreneurs (Up to 300,000 euros). Along the Enisa Growth line, Bayón affirms that since they are larger loans that are exempt from guarantees and guarantees, this leads them to have to be more conservative. For this line, Enisa not only focuses on history but also on the contribution and commitment of entrepreneurs to the company. After all, Enisa must ensure a degree of success as a public funding instrument, if it were not profitable it would not be able to continue financing other projects.
New Enisa funding models
Currently, Enisa has only one financing formula, through participatory loans that only participate when there is a profit in the company. Bayón comments that in some cases there have been companies that have told them that they would almost have preferred that Enisa would invest in the company's capital rather than having to pay variable interest. The CEO of Enisa does not rule out that this (investing part of the total in capital) may be a financing option in the future, although only in very specific cases, because most companies are still very comfortable with the current financing formula.
Reflections on the entrepreneurial ecosystem during and after Covid
The world has not experienced a global pandemic for 100 years, but these are issues that can happen and that must help us to see where it is important to invest. But for Bayón, this reflection is not only important during the crisis but also afterwards. During these months we have seen the importance that science, industry, technology, health and education have become, therefore, these are essential areas that we should bet on them always and not only when we are in crisis.
