The Spanish ecosystem has more than thirty vehicles oriented to think and develop innovative and disruptive businesses, which is called Venture Builder in the ecosystem, formerly also called company builder. A model that arrived in Spain 10 years ago with the help of Antai and now plays a key role in the national startup network.
El Referente
Manuel González
March 29, 2022
Like startups, technology and innovation, the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem requires an evolution of all the pieces that make up its gear. In this map of inventiveness, replication and disruption, the investor plays a key role. Therefore, its transformation is inevitable and necessary to enable the correct evolution of the business fabric of a sector, an ecosystem and a country. Their adaptability to business needs is directly related to the success of companies and their speed of growth - on which their success often depends.
From this phenomenon arises the Venture Builder, which is a startup factory, whose purpose is to adapt ideas or business models that have worked in other markets to replicate them in the local market. These vehicles usually own a very high percentage or even 100% of the company they create, comprehensively designing its entire organization chart: from the selection of management positions to the business idea that is developed, or the location of the offices (which is usually provided by the vehicle itself). "A Venture Builder is a company factory" -summarizes Ernest Sánchez, partner at Nuclio- "It has a team that studies trends and innovative initiatives in other geographies, and creates a business model adapted to the target markets".
THE ROLE OF VENTURE BUILDER
Ernest Sánchez considers that the key element to create the company "is talent, apart from the deep analysis of ideas and market testing". This translates into the successful search for co-founders to help launch the project as a whole, "where, depending on the different strategies of each venture builder, each one decides what percentage of capital policy is in the hands of the co-founders".
The Venture Builder is an essential co-founder of the startup, since it assumes it as its own from the beginning, "providing a set of experiences and legal, administrative, strategy, financing and business development services, which allows the co-founders who join the company launched by the Venture Builder to focus on product and business development," explains Ernest Sánchez.
Although incubators and accelerators also fulfill this mission of promoting a project and helping to turn it into a profitable business, the venture builder has the peculiarity of being an active and key part in the foundation of the startup or project; the characteristics that define it are the following:
Does not select external projects.
Defines the business idea to be developed.
Finds the founding team.
Validates the business until it works autonomously.
Owns most or all of the startup's capital.
THE VENTURE BUILDER IN THE SPANISH ECOSYSTEM
"There are different referents of Venture Builders such as Rocket Internet, which, created in 2007 in Germany, started with the successful Venture Builder model, having created companies such as Zalando, Lamoda and Wimdu, among others, and having positions in companies such as Delivery Hero," explains Ernest Sánchez.
For Nuclio's Managing Partner, the key moment came in 2012, with the appearance of Antai, and settled in 2016 with the launch of Nuclio. Two VBs that for Sánchez are the reference in Spain: "The first created businesses such as Wallapop and Nemuru, and in Nuclio Housfy, Typs (now Hastee) and Nuclio Digital School, among others, were born".
Since then, the model has been replicated, creating more than 30 venture builders in the Spanish ecosystem. Vehicles that start up new companies and businesses, with a technological and innovative character and that help to renew the business fabric, not only of the country, but of a global and connected network.
CORPORATE VENTURE BUILDER
Within the Venture Builder model there are also several categories, such as the Corporate Venture Builder, which acts as "a tool that allows large companies to diversify their business by launching new startups into the market," says Ángel Gutiérrez, co-founder and CEO of 7r Ventures. These vehicles "turn the launch of new startups into another 'process' of the business, so that it can be carried out in a recurrent, orderly, efficient and measurable manner, maximizing its impact and results", explains Gutiérrez.
In terms of innovation, until not so long ago companies only had two options: R&D or M&A. The question then was when to buy. "The emergence of Corporate Venturing changes the question to when should I build, when should I partner, when should I invest and when should I buy," says Ángel Gutiérrez. In short, companies and funds are increasingly developing and promoting vehicles that help them to broaden their horizons and manage their opportunities in the entrepreneurial and innovative ecosystem in a more precise way: "Venture Building allows you to build, Venture Client to partner and Corporate Venture Capital to invest," summarizes the CEO of 7r Ventures.
In a matter of 10 years -since the appearance of Antai in 2012- the Spanish startup and investor ecosystem has seen the birth of more than thirty vehicles focused on promoting, from the pre-initial phase, the development of new startups that respond to and solve the needs of society. In El Referente we wanted to collect and shed some light on all the Venture Builder with headquarters and main action in Spain. These are:
101 Ventures, 5G Ventures, 7r Ventures, AI Power, Aliquam, Ánima Ventures, Antai Venture Builder, BHV Partners, BYLD, EYWA SPACE, Fintech Ventures, Gastro Ventures, Green Ventures, Iestart, IMPACT Venture Builder, Iris Venture Builder, Más50, Mática Venture Builder, MetaVenture AI, Mutter Ventures, Nidio Invest, NODRIZA tech, Nuclio, Sonar Ventures, Startsud Studio, TECNALIA Ventures, The Data Venture, The Fringe LABS, TheCUBE, UNIQ Ventures, Wedid Ventures, Zebra Ventures, y Zubi Labs.
MÁTICA PARTNERS
Mática Venture Builder is the investment vehicle of the founders of Mática Partners. It acts in two ways: as a venture Builder, facilitating entrepreneurship by Mática Partners employees who propose initiatives related to MÁTICA's activity, and that can scale independently from the main company; and as venture capital, investing in early rounds of emerging companies and/or startups with a strong technological component based on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data.
Founders: Juan Ramón González, Marc Serra Majem, Víctor Fernández Parrilla, Rubén Robles Rodríguez y Pedro Pons Sais.
Startups created: Aqtiva Data Technologies y TALENTFY