Kibo Ventures

Today we are happy to announce the oversubscribed final closing of our new 2 funds for a combined $175M, bringing our assets under management up to $350M! After a wonderful 2021 year for Kibo Ventures, we can only say thank you to founders, LPs and supporters for making this dream a reality. And special thank you and shout out to our team made by Aquilino Peña, Javier Torremocha, Jose María Amusategui, CAIA, Juan López Santamaría, Joaquin Rebuelta Melgarejo, Sonia Fernandez, Valeria Loewe, Pedro Trinité, María Rosillo Trénor, Diego Mariño, Pol Fañanás Soriano & Covadonga García-Valdés, for playing an everyday more important role in this adventure, which we believe to be a prove of the great way ahead for the European and Spanish startup and VC ecosystems. https://lnkd.in/e9NUAazW

We are proud to have received the SpainCap award for the best VC exit in 2023 thanks to Flywire. This is our story as we invested and supported the company from their Series A to the first Nasdaq IPO ($FLYW) of a company with Spanish origins: Flywire is a payments platform with a proprietary global network providing customers with vertical solutions for their payments. The company was founded by Iker Marcaide in 2009, a Spanish MIT MBA who could not get into class due to poor payment processes at his bank and MIT. Right after meeting Iker in 2012, we had a strong conviction to invest in Flywire. An amazing team in Valencia and Boston developed a great product that gave transparency and better costs to customers. The market was huge and up for disruption, and the best unis were already clients! We co-led its Series A in 2013 together with Spark Capital and our friends JME Ventures. At that time, the company had under 50 clients, and managed a payment volume of $170m. We supported the company in their series A2 led by F-Prime Capital, and in their Series B led by Bain Capital. Thanks to amazing execution led by Mike Massaro as CEO, Flywire managed to keep growing and raised a Series C led by Temasek in 2018 and a Series D led by Goldman Sachs in 2020. At that point we were able to sell 1/3 of our position in secondary with no discount. The company IPOed on Nasdaq in May 2021. The Flywire story proves that global companies can be built from Spain, something core to our thesis. It also proves the relevant role local investors can play supporting the team with hiring, ideas, strategy, help navigating key inflection points and commercial agreements. In 2023, Flywire managed a global payment volume of over $24Bn in +140 currencies. Served +3,800 institutions and had offices in 16 countries on 5 continents, with a team of over 1,200 FlyMates! It has been an honor to share this venture with the founder Iker Marcaide, super CEO Mike Massaro, and all the FlyMates. Mike and Iker will always be a key part of Kibo Ventures’ history and we are very grateful to all of them for this journey. Go Flywire, Go Kibo! 

We are saying farewell to Ignacio Alfeiran Peñalosa, our platform intern, who is off to study in the US! Check out his views on the past 6 months at Kibo Ventures. If you want to be our next Platform Management Intern, apply here! Link: https://lnkd.in/dSjBbH5b 👉 What was your daily life like as an intern in the platform management program? In these 6 months, every day has been unique. I've actively helped organize events with Kibo Ventures and other top-tier VC firms, attended by the most relevant founders in the ecosystem. I've also been involved in developing and maintaining the Kibo Ventures Platform, providing support to our founders, and worked alongside global tech companies on key initiatives for the fund. I have learned lot! 👉What are your main highlights from these 6 months? The unique insights I've gained about platform and VC are invaluable. Another highlight has been the team – their full trust and support from day 1 has made all the difference! I definitely encourage any student interested in entrepreneurship and VC to apply!

Kibo team at AWS South Summit 2024 🌟🚀 "Shifting through the noise: Where are Generative AI opportunities in 2024?" We are happy to share that our Partner Juan L. Santamaría, participated in an exclusive panel discussion at the AWS South Summit 2024. At this event, we dive into the game-changing possibilities of Generative AI alongside Parkin Kent, Business Development for AI at Meta, and Yaron Zeidman, CTO of Job and Talent. 👥 This discussion delved into how innovative strategies and AI's power to help startups validate ideas quickly and achieve new heights.💡 Thank you to AWS and Nicolas Coudière for this inspiring event! 🙌 #AWS #SouthSummit #KiboVentures #GenerativeAI #StartupSuccess #Innovation

Kibo Team at South Summit 2024 🗣 🎉 Last week at #SouthSummit, our Kibo team made significant contributions through their participation in various insightful discussions. - 💡 Our Founder, Aquilino Peña, shared his expertise on strategies for business transitions, providing incredible insights during the "Lights, Camera, Exit" session. - 💳 Joaquin Rebuelta Melgarejo brought his knowledge to the forefront in an engaging discussion about how fintech companies can leverage Mastercard to succeed. - 👩💼 Sonia Fernandez played a key role in a compelling conversation about empowering women to reach senior roles in Private Equity and Venture Capital. We are incredibly proud of our team members for their valuable contributions and for representing Kibo Ventures at such an important event. Thank you to everyone who joined us and to the organization for hosting! #SouthSummit #KiboVentures #Innovation #Fintech #VentureCapital

Nzyme meet-up 👥 "The Impact of AI and Digital Transformation on Organizations" 📢 📅 Date: Wednesday, 19th at 12:00 PM. 📍 Location: Circus space, C/Marqués de Sta. Cruz, 14, Oviedo. 📝 Registration form: https://lnkd.in/d6hW7_kE

We’re excited to expand our team with a Platform Management Intern! If you’re passionate about technology and would like to take upon a new challenge, check the Job Description below for more info 👇 Apply here: https://lnkd.in/eJPMWM5a

Drink, Tapas & Friends - South Summit 2024 🥂✨   This year, we hosted our annual South Summit private event at Cielo de Chicote at the Hotel Montera Madrid | Curio Collection by Hilton. With +200 attendees, including many founders and local European VC investors, the evening was filled with great conversations, stunning views of Madrid, and delicious food and drinks. 💼   We want to extend a special thanks to our VC friends Seaya, Lightrock, and Lakestar for co-hosting this exceptional event with us. Your support helped make this night unforgettable. 🙌   Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make this event incredible. We look forward to many more great moments together! 🤝   #SouthSummit2024 #KiboVentures #Networking #Madrid 🇪🇸🚀

We’re excited to expand our team with a Platform Management Intern! If you’re passionate about technology and would like to take upon a new challenge, check the Job Description below for more info 👇 Apply here: https://lnkd.in/eJPMWM5a

“AI and deep tech must be driven by the entrepreneurial sector, we need to leverage the talent we have in Spain to lead this wave of innovation.”   This Thursday, we had the pleasure of co-hosting an event with Hill & Knowlton, where we shared incredible insights about the impact of AI and deep tech on technological development in Spain. 🗣️   Special thanks to Elisa Rivera Mendoza (General Director of Planning, Coordination, and Knowledge Transformation, Government of Spain), Salvador Estevan Martínez (General Director of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, Government of Spain), Pedro Castillo (Co-founder of Devo and Onum), Carlos Pardo (Co-founder and CEO of KDPOF), @Paco Montalvo (Chief Data Officer of Telefónica), Carlos Riquelme (Head of Language Models Team at Stability AI), Cristina Gallardo (journalist and moderator), and Juan López Santamaría (Partner at Kibo Ventures) for pushing this event to the next level. 💡   Thank you all for your contributions and for driving forward the conversation. 🌟 For more information  👇🏻 https://lnkd.in/dk7YgtbS