A lot has happened since we started Vernon back in January and we have many customer stories to share in the future. But what is clear is to us after this time is that the startup ecosystem in Spain — and Europe — is maturing very quickly.
A significant trend we’re seeing is Venture Capital firms spending more time helping their portfolio startups in their day to day, adding value through their collective experience in strategy, business development, talent management or product and engineering.
During our time as VPs of Product and Engineering at Jobandtalent we were lucky to see how operational involvement from VCs adds value to the startup. We got to know Kibo Ventures more closely and we could confirm, first-hand, their fame as one of the top VCs in Spain: Javier Torremocha was on our board and his deep insights and advice were key to moving forward on many aspects.
When we started Vernon we talked to several VCs, but Javier, José María and Aquilino at Kibo Ventures were the first to see the value of our model and we immediately started doing projects with them, their portfolio companies and other members of the firm. Sonia, Joaquín, Juan, Valeria and the rest of the really are a dream team for a VC.
Today we are proud and honoured to announce that we’re joining Kibo Ventures as Operating Partners. We’ll get to spend more time working with them and their amazing portfolio startups and of course we’ll continue growing the Vernon model with our customers.
As Operating Partners we’ll be helping Kibo, among other things, by:
- Collaborating on product, engineering and general strategies for portfolio startups.
- Evaluating deal flow and opportunities from a product/tech point of view.
- Participating in, and organising events, workshops or conferences organised for the Kibo startups and the rest of community.
Our mission is helping mature the Spanish startup ecosystem and we believe working more closely with Kibo Ventures, being part of the family, will help us build towards this goal.
