Finland's Gaussian Scout and Spain's Pixentinel won the top prizes at the 2026 Zinemaldia Startup Challenge, the San Sebastián Festival's flagship technology competition. Gaussian Scout, a browser-based virtual location scouting platform, secured the Best European Project award (€10,000) plus a Special Mention for Entrepreneurship (€3,000), whilst Spanish streaming-operations startup Pixentinel took the €30,000 Best Spanish Project award. These innovations address significant challenges in film and video production—Gaussian Scout tackles the difficulty of communicating spatial information about filming locations, whilst Pixentinel helps broadcasters quickly diagnose and respond to live-streaming failures that cost viewers and revenue.

The competition saw ten finalists—five Spanish and five from elsewhere in Europe—pitch their projects with strict ten-minute presentations. Gaussian Scout, developed by Finnish cinematographer Antti Ahokoivu, employs Gaussian splats, XGRIDS scans, photogrammetry and related 3D capture methods to create a shared environment where filmmaking teams can explore spaces, frame shots and measure locations accurately. The project remains pre-commercial with a subscription launch targeted for autumn 2027, and Ahokoivu intends to use the prize money to test the platform on real productions and develop cloud-based systems allowing users to work with digital twins. The Zinemaldia Startup Challenge, organised by the San Sebastián Festival with various public and cultural partners, offered €30,000 for Best Spanish Project, €10,000 for Best European Project and €3,000 for a Special Mention for Entrepreneurship.