Renata Sujto

+++ exits exist +++ Last week Cobee 🇪🇸 from Speedinvest portfolio signed an agreement to join Pluxee (fka Sodexo Benefits and Rewards Services) 👏 😎 quick recap: 2019 375k pre-seed round ESC Venture Capital SGEIC (antes Encomenda Smart Capital), LANAI Partners 2020 2.1m seed round Speedinvest and Target Global 2021 14m seriesA Balderton Capital DILA Capital 2022 40m seriesB Notion Capital Octopus Ventures 2024 trade sale To Borja Aranguren and everyone at the fantastic team Cobee: All the best for the next stage of your journey of redefining employee benefits and thank you for trusting us with your seed round!!! 🙏 Some personal observations and thoughts: 🔸 Pluxee spun out from Sodexo (roots dating back to 1892!!) and listed on Euronext (EPA: PLX) in January 2024 to form a pure player and the global leader in employee rewards & benefits. Pluxee serves 1.7m partner retailers, 500k corporate clients and 36m consumers. A large base for scale. 🔸 It took Cobee (only) 5yrs from pre-seed to exit. They started from scratch to build a digital player in the space. 🔸 The avantgarde of smart european corporates is actively driving the digital transformation of their industries and business models by M&A and investing in startups. With this acquisition Pluxee is going FFD in mastering the digital transformation of its industry. 🔸 If the economics make sense and the strategic and cultural fit is there then swift action pays off for all: 1) for the founders and the startup's employees who get the unique chance to grow and see their "baby" adding value to the economy 2) for the acquiring corporate to leapfrog digital transformation And last but not least for the VCs involved and all their LPs underpinning the attractiveness of the asset class VC. 🔸 We all need more of this! Esp in Europe. It produces full-cycle experienced founders in under a fund's lifespan. This is so crucial to the whole tech & VC ecosystem. And to the wider economy! Good Luck team Cobee for your onward journey!! EU-Startups has more: https://lnkd.in/eSZDKPXm Invest Europe invest.austria #venturecapital

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On note: Content provenance is a potent and emerging market.

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Welcome to the Korelya Capital family Ifeel - Humanising Growth! Glad to co-lead this $20m Series B investment that will help building a category leading player in the B2B Mental Health industry. What convinced us about this opportunity: - Mental health issues are unfortunately one these massive secular trends that can be heavily supported by tech to address people in genuine need. - ifeel is actually democratising access to mental health for everyone thanks to a unique and scalable value proposition for all stakeholders: -> for patients: 100% coverage (for low-medium-high risk patients and their family) thanks to a broad suite of AI tech solutions, curated specialised therapists, leading to minutes vs weeks to be supported. -> for corporates: affordable solution (in direct or as part of you insurance health package), with a clear ROI case reducing turnover and absenteism while improving your employer brand. -> for insurers: a scalable business development offering to address new corporates needs while keeping control on their books and collecting insights for smart underwriting. - Finally, we are pleased to see the company is already present in 30+ countries including in Asia where we will do our best to support the team. Kudos Amir Kaplan, Martin Villanueva, Gabriele Murrone and the whole Ifeel - Humanising Growth team for building such an inspiring company. Looking forward to working with you! https://lnkd.in/e3mdb5b4

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📰 Great to be featured on the latest Sifted article by Amy Lewin Joe Schorge, Maria Rotilu and I share our thoughts on the topic of ''How many new #VC funds does Europe need?'' and the ''rise in solo GPs across Europe'' 💭 TLDR: In my opinion, Solo GPs are fantastic! They truly do care and are super useful with great networks, hunger and high-speed. However many solo GPs don’t lead deals at pre-seed, and the European ecosystem could do with a few more funds that do. But there are exceptions, such as Germany’s Gloria Baeuerlein, Finn Murphy, and Max Claussen, to name a few. Full article here: https://lnkd.in/dWXUFsWb

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Founders Mesh Fam!💙 Our upcoming event at Chateau Amsterdam on June 27th, 18:30 is getting close. We've sold out all our Pioneer's Privilege (Early Bird) tickets – thank you for the wonderful response.💘 Regular tickets: https://lu.ma/jxxow2q9 👥 What’s Next? We’re preparing for an intimate evening packed with insights, networking, local wine, and pitches. Join over 120 founders, VCs, and facilitators who are all about making genuine connections and sharing knowledge. If you’re in the startup scene, this is your chance to mingle, learn, and maybe even spark a new collaboration. 🌟 Special Thanks to Our Partners: A big shout-out to StartupAmsterdam and Startupbootcamp for joining forces with us. With their support, we're set to make this an unforgettable experience for everyone involved. 🎟 Still Need a Ticket? We currently sell Risk Taker Access aka Regular Tickets—grab one of the remaining tickets before they’re gone: https://lu.ma/jxxow2q9 Let's make this a night of meaningful connections and breakthrough moments. Can't wait to see you all at the wonderful Chateau Amsterdam!💙 If you have any questions, feel free to ping me!💌 Luis Galdamez Echeverria Sabina Basariyeva StartupAmsterdam Startupbootcamp Chateau Amsterdam #FoundersMesh #NetworkingEvent #StartupLife #Innovation #Entrepreneurship

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Wing Venture Capital is excited to unveil today the "Angels' Share 100", an exclusive list of the most active angel investors in the most promising startups in B2B technology. This project's mission is to serve as an information and relationship platform for the founder and angel community. Building a successful B2B technology company is hard work, and as early-stage investors and long-term company builders ourselves, we know we need all the help we can get! An important source of help has been the individual investors we work with. Individuals investing alongside us have consistently made powerful contributions to ultimate success. So we set out to study these “angels” in our midst. Who are they? Where did they come from? What allows them to make a difference? https://lnkd.in/gfFs4-bu

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🚀 Important: This gathering is specifically designed for companies with a team size of approximately 30 or more—indicating they're beyond the early startup phase. In collaboration with IESE Business School, ranked among the top three business schools globally, 🏫 and partnered with Google for Startups, on behalf of Movens Capital we're thrilled to invite you to a one-of-a-kind event in #Warsaw titled "Foundations of Scaling Open Day Warsaw". This all-day workshop focuses on methods for scaling your business from a moderate size to beyond. 📈 🗓 Date and Time: May 13, 2024, from 12:00 PM to 8:00 PM 📍 Location: Google for Startups Campus, 10 Koneser Square, Warsaw 🔗 Registration Link and Event Details: Please see the LINK IN THE COMMENTS BELOW 💸 Price: Complimentary This workshop is part of the Foundations of Scaling (FoS) program, tailored for ambitious technology company founders ready to scale operations beyond 30 staff members. 🌟 🔍 Event Sessions: 📌Growth Strategy: Prof. @Germán Loewe will begin with a session on strategic planning, discussing the crucial role of market barriers, the relevance of profit pools, and strategic planning for expansion. He will also introduce practical tools to help you solidify your market position and growth strategy. 📌Scaling Your Leadership: Dr. Sebastian Ross and a panel including FoS alumni Ron Fridman 🇺🇦, Rafal Plutecki, and Pawel Bochniarz will cover the critical aspect of leadership in scaling operations. They'll discuss upgrading your leadership approach to keep pace with your company's growth. 🚀 📌Pricing Strategies: I'll be discussing the nuances of setting prices for products and services, focusing on balancing profitability with customer goodwill. 💲 📌Operational Growth Routines: Konrad Kwiatkowski will showcase how leveraging data and effective meeting strategies can support business planning and functional growth, helping foster a culture of adaptability and continuous improvement. 📊 Join us for an evening of networking and refreshments 🍹

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🌟 Excited to share our journey at Startupbootcamp Amsterdam! 🌟 During the event, Kamil Marczak and I had the incredible opportunity to pitch our startup, Digital Bonds AI. Our vision is to revolutionize the bond market by tokenizing paper-based bonds and transferring them directly to a digital form using blockchain technology. This approach eliminates the need for intermediaries, providing both bond issuers and investors with direct access to digital assets in a secure and efficient manner. In the picture below, you can see us presenting our innovative solution. We highlighted a critical insight: although the bond market is larger than the stock market, a very small number of small companies and startups take advantage of it. We believe this needs to change. Our mission is to democratize access to bond financing, making it an attractive and viable option for startups and small businesses. By leveraging crowdfunding, we can offer a faster and potentially more successful alternative to traditional bank loans, which often involve lengthy processes and uncertain outcomes. We're passionate about creating a more inclusive financial ecosystem where businesses of all sizes can thrive. A huge thank you to the Startupbootcamp team and everyone who supported us along the way. As you say, and we share your view: Innovation will save the world! 🌍🚀 #Startupbootcamp #DigitalBondsAI #Blockchain #FinTech #Innovation #Crowdfunding #BondMarket #StartupFunding #Amsterdam

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Tom Blomfield at Y Combinator: "recognize that investor feedback can often be misleading or counterproductive" I had a brief talk with a mate at Lanzadera last Thursday. He was puzzled with the divergent and often random feedback from candidate #investors for his #startup. My message was: the same way the recruiter's feedback is usually misleading because they had to hide the real reason (age, gender, piercings...), you can inflict great damage to your company if you follow every single feedback from each #VC that passed on you. Most of them won't tell you the truth. Be careful. Listen, filter, and decide with extreme care whether or not to implement a change in your company, or simply in your pitch. https://lnkd.in/dnXFC8kZ

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VC investors do have hearts. We found that out yesterday. Jokes aside, yesterday we ran the first VC Bootcamp at the #SchoolOfFounders with legendary coach and author Jerry Colonna. Twenty of Spain's best VC partners spent the day at IESE Business School to reflect on the emotional struggles that building and investing in startups entails. It was a fascinating day, as we usually hear about the founder's side in our programs. One important insight I took away from this wonderful session is the need for investors and board members to be honest: ✔ Honest about how they feel when they show up for a meeting. (A simple Red, Yellow, Green check-in would work wonders to sync emotionally with the founder.) ✔ Honest about their fears, doubts, and insecurities. (Imagine a young VC partner saying to the founder: "This is my first investment. I don't really know yet what I am doing, and I feel tremendous pressure to perform. Can you help me figure out how I can be most useful to you and together help the company perform?") ✔ Honest about their motives for making a particular comment. ("I'm asking you this because I'm very concerned about my reputation if this goes wrong. I'm raising my next fund, and this would make it very difficult.") Nothing fancy. Not authentic, not vulnerable, simply honest as Jerry taught us. Sharing empathetically and, with good intentions, what's really going through your head. This alone would tremendously improve the relationship between investors and founders. (Of course, the founder should do the same.) In any case, it was a fantastic event, and I'm very grateful to Jerry for sharing his enormous wisdom and skillfully guiding us through the day. I'm also grateful to Paula Sancho and her team at Finaves for the idea and for gathering her investor friends. And extremely grateful to our VCs for showing up and sharing so openly. We actually might do this again soon. Albert Botet, Enrique Penichet García, Guillem Masferrer, Isaac Mendoza, Javier Cebrián Monereo, Jordi Vidal, Marc Badosa Rigau, Marc Guasch Rodriguez, Marc Subirats, Marta G. Zanchi, María Romero Miguel, Marti Escursell, Mathieu Carenzo, Josep Casas Pérez, Pepe Agell, Samuel Gil, Sonia Fernandez, Tony Anagor, Stephen Stynes PS: Here is a great article by Allison Schultz, Jerry's cofounder at Reboot on the topic: https://lnkd.in/dPccnPSs

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Discover how open innovation accelerates product development and unlocks new growth avenues by tapping into the global startup ecosystem! 👉 An interesting article from StartUs Insights InnovaticGroup. Create the Future Now innovaticgroup.com #InnovaticGroup #StratUs #Innovation #Digitalization #InnovationManagement #InnovationManager #CorporateInnovation

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Whenever I hear about new government incentives to attract people, I think of Balaji and the network state. Take Portugal’s Golden Visa program: it offers residency to those who invest in real estate or business. In the network state, there's a concept called a network union. It’s the idea that people can band together to secure better deals or benefits for its members, leveraging group buying power. These better incentives will lead to more people willing to move or make big changes. And incentives shape outcomes.

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Which VC firms have dry powder right now? These 7 firms just closed new capital and are actively deploying it into #startups 👇🏻 🔴 Pasadena based Freeflow Ventures raised $50M between its two funds. The funds will invest in science-driven solutions to human and planetary health challenges. 🔴 Madrid based Seaya raised €300M for its Seaya Andromeda fund. The fund will back startups across Europe and the UK that are working on solutions for energy and decarbonization, the circular economy, and the sustainable food value chain. 🔴 Menlo Park based The Westly Group raised its $100M seed fund to focus on entrepreneurs transforming the energy, mobility, building, and industrial sectors. 🔴 Boston based J2 Ventures raised its second $150M fund to invest in deep technology startups for the US government. 🔴 Menlo Park based Kleiner Perkins raised $825M for its twenty first early stage fund and $1.2B for its KP Select III fund. The funds will focus on enterprise software, consumer, healthcare, fintech, and hardtech. 🔴 Geneva based Forestay Capital closed its second $220M fund to invest in Israeli startups and help them expand in Europe. 🔴 San Francisco based Industry Ventures closed its $900M fund to support early stage technology emerging managers and companies. Follow Moves in VC and you'll get the full list every single week.

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Want to move to Spain? Here's a list of well-funded startups from June 2024: - TravelPerk (business travel) raised up to $135M. - Tinybird (real-time APIs) raised $30M. - Bespoke Pixel Studio (gaming) raised €25M. - Cabify (transport) raised €20M. - Bcas (student finance) raised €17M. - Job&Talent (marketplace) raised €18M. - NeuronUP (cognitive rehabilitation) raised €10M. - Samara (solar energy) raised €9M. - Mitiga Solutions (data analytics) raised €8M. - Badi (room rental app) raised €7M. - FOSSA Systems (IoT satellite) raised €6.3M. - Ray studios (tattoo removal) raised €4.62M. - Danelfin (AI stock analytics) raised €2M. - Alinia AI (alignment platform) raised $2.4M. - Sincrolab (digital therapies) raised €1.7M. - Leemons LXP (edtech) raised €1.62M. - Bit2Me (crypto) received investment from Unicaja. - Azitek (IOT) raised €750K. - inBiot Monitoring SL (biotech) raised €500K. Get dealflow in your inbox monthly, subscribe with link below 👇 #startups #emprendimiento #spain #tech 📸: credit to contxto

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Has 'venture-backed' been replaced by 'bootstrapped' as the badge of honor? While economic downturns have undoubtedly hit everybody, bootstrapped startups have shown remarkable resilience. Sofia Faustino's insights only prove the viability of the bootstrapped model. Her data shows top-quartile bootstrapped companies reach $1M ARR only four months later than VC-backed companies. Barely a blip. This really challenges the whole “you need VC money to grow fast” notion. Sure, going bootstrapped doesn’t make you recession-proof and may slow growth, but it tends to be more sustainable in the long run, especially in niche markets where rapid scaling isn’t always necessary or beneficial. It begs the question: Is VC funding worth the significant equity dilution? Is the "grow fast or die" mentality fading away? How do we strike a balance between bootstrapped anti-fragility vs. VC’s rapid scaling? Are we overvaluing speed at the expense of long-term value creation? Either way, building a boot-strapped, profit-led firm to then realize a rationale and less feast-or-famine exit via acquisition seems like the best of all worlds (but we're biased)... What's your take? Credit: Chart Mogul and Crunchbase News Click 'Follow' for your regular dose of insightful micro SaaS content. For the love of the game... #Startups #Fundraising #Investing #VentureCapital

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At Movens Capital, we are committed to providing tech companies with essential knowledge and resources for success (#MovensAcademy). We recently conducted a comprehensive workshop on Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), led by Stefan from Samira Advisors (thanks a lot!), to prepare companies from our close network for future growth and acquisition opportunities. Key Highlights: 📚 Introduction to M&A: The workshop began with an overview of the M&A process, emphasizing the importance of early preparation and strategic positioning for a successful merger or acquisition. ⏱ Timing and Valuation: Discussions included the optimal timing for selling a company and how to navigate the valuation differences between the venture capital and M&A markets. 🤝 Strategic Partnerships: The significance of establishing strong strategic partnerships was highlighted as a key factor in increasing a company's attractiveness for acquisition. 💼 Financial and Legal Preparedness: The workshop stressed the need for financial stability and thorough legal documentation, underscoring these as critical elements in the M&A process. 🔄 Shareholder Alignment: The importance of aligning the interests of all shareholders to avoid potential conflicts during an acquisition was explored in detail. 🎉 Post-Acquisition Considerations: The session concluded with insights into the post-acquisition phase, focusing on cultural adjustments and the challenges of integration. This workshop is part of Movens VC's ongoing effort to support our portfolio companies and ecosystem through their growth and development stages, ensuring they are well-prepared for the challenges and opportunities of M&A activities.

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Despite the industry shakeup, I’m incredibly bullish on the office. And I see HUGE opportunities emerging for European entrepreneurs. Who will capitalize on it? The Shakeup: 1. Supply <> demand imbalance ∙ Rising vacancy rates ∙ A surge of quality spaces on rental portals 2. Surge in sub-lease market ∙ Blitzscale era companies offloading (or exiting) lease commitments ∙ 48% of all companies are looking to decrease office footprint in next 3-5 years (source: JLL) 3: Flight to quality ∙ Favor towards Class A, amenitized, prime locations ∙ Plummeting Building Valuations But this shakeup is unlocking a new market opportunity. Tech companies demand better space, and landlords desperately need to attract customers to theirs. Both need support. Brokers and Flex will take a share of the pie, but there’s a huge chunk left to bite into. Who’s at the forefront? I have some thoughts of my own… Drop a note in the comments. Let’s chat. #futureofwork

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"Are accelerators worth it?" People often ask about my experience with Geeks and Experts joining the Founder Catalyst program by Techstars and I strongly believe that: All kinds of accelerators (non-dilutive, in-person, equity-based, remote) are what YOU make of them. The investment of time, resources, and effort needs to be well-thought-through because it can make or break your eventual outcomes. It’s unfair to expect that joining an accelerator means the programmers will: 1) Talk to your customers on your behalf 2) Build the product for you 3) Raise money for you 4) Pitch for you 5) Sell for you What accelerators can help with is: 1) Introductions to potential investors, partners, etc. 2) Mentorship from a vast network of the ecosystem 3) Peer support from founders fighting the same fight 4) Advice on leveraging tools, best practices, and resources 5) Real-time pitch practice and support from EIRs, designers Like grants, awards, and so on, accelerators are what you make of them. #entrepreneurship #startups #founders

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What happened to CTech’s 50 most promising #startups from last year (2023)? An #analysis following up on Ido Hart’s interesting request. Most recurring investors as of today? Insight Partners, Pitango & Entrée Capital. Closely followed by NFX & Cerca Partners. Interestingly, more investor overlaps. 2 * Acquisitions - Talon (by Palo Alto Networks) & Locusview. Nice! Company sizes by headcount (2024): 1️⃣ Small (11-34) - 8.3%  2️⃣ Medium (35 - 59) - 22.9% 3️⃣ Large (60+) - 68.8% As a general concept, last year’s list consisted of “growthier” stage companies, with about a third of the list having 100+ employees. Fastest growing companies YoY in employees for each category: 🥇Descope (Small). 🥇Trullion (Medium). 🥇Eleos Health (Large).    All growing in high double digits in headcount %. No triple digit growth in the list. Understandable seeing as the list was composed of bigger companies. Total funding to-date average $105M and the latest round average is $52M, highlighting the later stage companies focus in the 2023 list. WEKA leads the list with the most funding to-date, totaling $415M raised. 37.5% of companies actually reduced their headcount in the last 12-months. Out of the shrinking companies population, 8 companies (16.66% of the total set) reduced headcount by over 20% in the 12 months. This is probably due to residual effects of the funding-overdose of 2021-2022 + current conflict. 27% of companies either stayed stale or grew their workforce by up to 10%, steady and impressive given the times. 35.5% of companies grew their workforce by 10%-46.5%+, pretty awesome considering the average company size in the list. Since the list publication, 11 companies have declared subsequent funding, representing 22.9% of the list. 26 companies, representing 54.1% of the list, haven't disclosed a new financing round in 18+ months. Any #growth investors in the crowd? Last note, about tracking commercialization growth. I created a score-card model to analyze how many companies actually increased their commercialization related departments - Sales, Marketing, Customer Success. This helps understand whether a company simply streamlined expenses to extend runway or has a positive outlook towards increased revenue. The scoring model consists of three 12-month headcount growth % parameters, one for each department. Sales & Marketing have equal weights - 40% and CS is 20% of the score. Value ranges to calculate the score are all equal - departments which grew 1% or less get a ‘0’ score and departments that grew 20% or more get a ‘100’ score. 15 companies, representing 31.3%~ are showing positive signs of commercialization growth with at least two of the three departments growing in the last year. Want to run your own deep dive analysis of the list or any other list? DM me and I’m happy to assist! Get the full list here to perform your own analysis -> https://lnkd.in/dR_RuGjN

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