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Investing in Spain is an exploration of the Spanish venture community, providing global investors, founders and partners an introduction to the people, ideas and strategies of this growing ecosystem. Spain is the fastest growing economy in Europe, and an emerging European technology powerhouse. Through conversations with local investors, founders, and asset allocators, we help all those interested in European venture investing better allocate their time and money.
My guests today are Ale Piedrahita and Giulia Cerbelli from the Calafia Syndicate:
The Calafia Syndicate is a new angel investing group of 20 leading women in Spanish tech. Calafia's mission is to increase the participation of women in the early-stage capital market in Spain, support Spanish founders to grow globally, and to promote diversity in the ecosytem as a whole. The group has a decidated fund to invest in Spanish startups, and is already closing on a first deal.
In this conversation Ale and Giulia share the thinking behind Calafia - how they were able to bring together such a talented group of operators, investors, founders, lawyers and bankers around this mission. We learn how Calafia operates, what they are looking for in new investments, and why founders should consider adding Calafia to their cap table.
Calafia is a great new addition to the Spanish tech market. I hope founders and other VCs enjoy learning more about this talented group and find ways to collaborate.
My guest today is Sandra Nolasco, Founder and CEO of Twinco Capital:
Twinco is an ambitous, mission driven fintech company based in Madrid providing financing to small and medium sized companies around the world. Through better technology and risk analytics they can extend more credit at lower cost to the manufacturing suppliers for European retailers. It is a unique model that significantly reduces financing costs and improves supply reliability, with benefits for both suppliers and buyers. Sandra founded the company after a succesful career in trade finance, as a Managing Director at BBVA and before that as Head of Commodities for Brazil at Fortis Bank. In this conversation we talk about that career path, and the insights that led to starting Twinco.
Sandra shares:
This is a great conversation for entrepreneurs and investors interesting in innovation in finance for societal benefit. Sandra brings infectious optimism and deep expertise to challenging global issues. I hope listening to her share the strory of Twinco inspires you as much as it did for me.
My guests today are Aris Xenofontos and Mary Egan from Seaya Ventures:
Seaya is a top VC fund in Spain, with over 650M Euros in assets under management. The fund has supported Spanish tech breakouts like Glovo, Wallbox and Clarity. Yet, Seaya is not resting on past success.
Our conversation highlights how Aris, Mary and the team are building an investment firm for differentiated future returns. They share about the ongoing data investment at Seaya, and how they are using technology to find companies before competitors. We discuss how the investment process works internally, including how the team works across three distinct investment strategies.
Founders and investors interested in learning more about how Seaya works and what they are looking for will love this conversation. Seaya doesn't do a lot of interviews, so I am excited to share this conversation.
My guest today is Fer Pedraz, founder and CEO of Reveni:
"Your pessimism is my opportunity." With a nod to Jeff Bezos, that's my summary of Reveni's approach. Fer and team are on a mission to help retailers improve their profitability, initially by supporting an instant returns and exchange process, but with plans for deeper integrations to support wholistic planning and customer support across the retail business.
Reveni makes money today by betting that customers will do the right thing when returning or exchanging a product. They advance the refund immediately, and take on the risk if the product does not return, or comes back damaged. They do this through better data - building a customer risk profile to help them anticipate what will happen.
It is inherently an optimistic business model, and a global vision. We talk about that, and much more. Fer shares his lessons for coming up with the initial idea, and getting early momentum for the business.
Enjoy my conversation with Fer Pedraz
My guest this week is Marta Higuera, AI Labs Director at Insud Pharma:
Our conversation focuses on building an entrepreneurial career: how to navigate a 'sea of gray', in Marta's words, when making career decisions.
After growing up in a small community outside Santander, Marta has helped lead organizations on four continents. She has worked for prestigous global brands like McKinsey and BCG, and also started and run her own company.
My hope is this conversation provides inspiration and specific actionable advice for listeners following their own entrepreneurial journey.
This show is about the rise of the technology industry in Spain. Marta's story is one that is both unique and representative of the ongoing growth and diversification of our economy - not just in Spain but also in emerging tech hubs around the world. Please enjoy.
Also, Marta and the team at Insud Health are hiring. Here is the Career page for more information on open roles at: https://jobs.insudpharma.com/
Today, we have a special episode. On Dec 9, 2023, European Parliament negotiators and the Council presidency agreed on the final version of the world's first-ever comprehensive legal framework on Artificial Intelligence; the EU AI Act.
My guest today was a central figure in that negotiation. Carme Artigas represented Spain as the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence. Because Spain held the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU her voice and her role were crucial in getting the agreement done.
As you will hear, Carme worked on this process for several years. She shares what the regulations require, and also the balance the policy makers were trying to accomplish in developing this new framework. We talk about the implications for competitiveness between Europe and other parts of the world, and also between startups and large incumbents within Europe.
It is hard to overstate the importance of this legal framework for European consumers, for technology startups and investors globally, and for future economic growth for all. AI is already shaping global markets and industries. The US and India, two major markets, have not yet determined how to regulate. In just the past month since the EU framework was announced, several countries across the world have indicated interest in following the path provided by the EU AI Act. As more countries follow the 27 members of the EU, this policy framework will shape AI’s development and use for years to come.
Carme is now Co-Chair of the UN AI Advisory Board, which recently released an interim report here: https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/ai_advisory_body_interim_report.pdf
Her request to the audience is to share input on this report and process here: https://www.un.org/en/ai-advisory-body
Please enjoy my conversation with Carme Artigas
My guest this week is Sergio Gonzalez, co-founder of Piper AI:
Along with his two co-founders, Sergio is building Piper as a generation AI CRM. He comes to the challenge after years leading sales ops and sales teams at world class companies (Google, Twitter, Stripe, Job & Talent).
In our conversation, Sergio names the 'false premise' of CRM systems today - the idea that sales teams will consistently put in the data needed to get actionable insights from a CRM. Piper is building a solution that addresses this fundamental challenge.
We cover:
Sergio's story fits well within the Investing in Spain thesis. Piper is international from day one, developing initial customers across Europe. With the growing global importance of industry specific AI applications, Piper is a noteworthy startup not just for Spain, but globally. Enjoy this conversation with Sergio Gonzalez.
My guest his week is Haydee Barroso, founder and CEO of Atani:
Atani is a European-regulated company that has built the first crypto broker that enables access to all the crypto market with only one account. Atani aggregates the liquidity of top exchanges (centralized and DeFi) so users can access all the coins with only one KYC. Haydee's story fits squarely within the thesis for this show: Atani is a one of one tech company building a unique technical product. Haydee and team are globally ambitious, already serving over 300,000 customers from all over the world.
In this conversation, we cover how Haydee and her brother Paul are building this company, and why they are doing it from Madrid.
In the last part of our conversation, Haydee talks about building the Atani technology platform in a way that they could open up core services to others similar to how Amazon opened up AWS. If you are long crypto markets in general, the Atani team is one to watch.
And, here's the 2011 Wired article about Bitcoin mentioned in our conversation:
https://www.wired.com/2011/11/mf-bitcoin/
Enjoy,
Rory
My guest today is Jose Bayon, CEO of Enisa.
ENISA is a state owned company integrated into the Spanish Government’s Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. ENISA's mission is to promote entrepreneurship and support small and medium sized businesses throughout Spain. Last year, ENISA provided over 100M Euros of funding to Spanish startups.
I wanted to talk with Jose about the work ENISA does throughout the Spanish startup ecosystem. We discuss:
After talking with many investors and founders directly, this conversation provided me a broader lens on the ongoing transformation in Spain. At least according to Jose, there is wide support for continued investment and policy change to accelerate the entrepreneurial economy in Spain as a key lever of future growth. I found this conversation helpful in understanding that broader economic goal.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jose Bayon.
My guest today is Isabel Rodriquez, Partner at King & Wood Mallesons:
Isabel is the head of the Investment Funds team at King & Wood and the preeminent attorney in Spain for all things venture capital. She advises LPs and GPs in structuring and establishment of domestic and international investment funds (including venture capital), secondary transactions, carried interest arrangements, co-investment plans and other related transactions such as restructuring of funds or creation of special purposes vehicles for investment into private equity.
Isabel shares her expert perspective on the challenge for Spanish venture firms raising capital from international investors. We cover:
This conversation solves a riddle for me in this inquiry - there are added costs and complexities for Spanish GPs, but not from the side of Spanish regulation. Enjoy this conversation with Isabel.
Amanda is a wife. A mother. A blogger. A Christian.
A charming, beautiful, bubbly, young woman who lives life to the fullest.
But Amanda is dying, with a secret she doesn’t want anyone to know.
She starts a blog detailing her cancer journey, and becomes an inspiration, touching and
captivating her local community as well as followers all over the world.
Until one day investigative producer Nancy gets an anonymous tip telling her to look at Amanda’s
blog, setting Nancy on an unimaginable road to uncover Amanda’s secret.
Award winning journalist Charlie Webster explores this unbelievable and bizarre, but
all-too-real tale, of a woman from San Jose, California whose secret ripped a family apart and
left a community in shock.
Scamanda is the true story of a woman whose own words held the key to her secret.
New episodes every Monday.
Follow Scamanda on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Amanda’s blog posts are read by actor Kendall Horn.
