The California Spain Chamber of Commerce is organizing the first edition of the Silicon Valley-Spain Venture Summit, to be held on June 10. A selection of early-stage Spanish startups will have the opportunity to pitch in front of some of the most prominent tech investors in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Pepe Agell, member of the founding team at Chartboost, is president of the California Spain Chamber. His company was the first startup with Spanish-born founders to get investment from Sequoia Capital. “Silicon Valley is an extremely competitive environment that requires founders to think big. Through the venture summit, we want the founders of the most promising Spanish startups to have direct access to this capital that can dramatically accelerate their companies,” he says.
This non-profit organization is supported by institutions that are active players in the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem. That is the case of ASCRI (Spanish investor association), Caixa Capital Risc, Wayra and Banc Sabadell. The law firms K&L Gates and Cuatrecasas are also joining this initiative, providing legal advice to the participants.
The deadline for submitting startups is May 16. After that, a committee of experts that includes investors and entrepreneurs will select the six startups that will present to well-known VCs in Silicon Valley, home of Andreesen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, KPCB and Accel.
The first edition on June 10 will be virtual as a result of COVID-19. “The global pandemic has accelerated a trend that was already latent: investors look beyond Silicon Valley and want to invest globally, as long as great ideas meet execution. Spain is, for sure, one of these places,” says Mar Hershenson, a Catalan investor at Pear VC with more than 20 years of experience in Silicon Valley, who is also a board member of the California Spain Chamber of Commerce.
Before pitching to investors, the selected founders will receive training and advice from experts and peer entrepreneurs who have successfully gone through the fundraising journey, such as Alejando Artacho from Spotahome, Javier Cortes from Flexport, Pilar Manchon from Google and Alberto Martinez from Streamloots.
With companies like Glovo, Wallapop, Flywire and Typeform, the Spanish market just surpassed the €1 billion transaction value threshold in 2020, becoming a sizable market in the context of the larger European region. International VC firms are already operating in Spain and have established a productive and symbiotic relationship with their Spanish co-players. “We do not want this Venture Summit to be an anecdote, but the beginning of a recurrent, growing action that normalizes the access to capital and the relationship between Spanish entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley investors,” Agell remarks.
