A.I.R-e

  • DATABASE (268)

  • ARTICLES (286)

    • DATABASE (268)
    • ARTICLES (286)
  • Sort by
    • Relevance
    • Date

Founded over 110 years ago from several small agricultural cooperative banks, the Dutch commercial banking group Rabobank has over 10m customers across 47 countries. The banking group’s Rabo Investments vehicle manages Rabo Ventures with a €120m fund investing globally in early-stage fintech and agtech startups. There is also a €30m fund-of-funds to partner with leading VCs in other funding rounds like the $12m funding round of Dutch e-scooter company GO Sharing.The Rabobank Food & Agri Innovation Fund specializes in supporting enterprises involved in creating sustainable solutions for diverse food and agricultural sectors including livestock farms. Rabo F&A Innovation Fund currently has 11 agri-foodtech startups in its portfolio, including participation in a $12m Series A round of Vence, US-based virtual fencing tech company for livestock management.

Founded in London in 1998, Kreos Capital is a pioneer growth debt provider. Kreos has completed over 630 deals worth over €3bn in pan-European countries and Israel. The Kreos Capital Group of companies and various funds are regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission.Kreos currently has 102 companies in its portfolio and has managed over 200 exits. Investee Riskified, an Israeli e-commerce fraud protection company, was listed on the NYSE at a $3.3bn valuation in August 2021. Kreos also joined recent investments in 2021 including the $54m Series B round of Austrian refurbished electronics goods marketplace Refurbed and the €9.5m round of Berlin-based HRtech expertlead.

Portuguese state investment company PME Investimentos is the country's most prolific tech investor. Founded in 1989 as a joint stock company, SULPEDIP was under the supervision of the Bank of Portugal and changed its name to PME in 1998. The main aim is to help local SMEs to access funding and financial management services to develop and expand internationally. PME has invested in hundreds of startups, both tech and non-tech focused, across market verticals. It also manages several funds, including 200M that was launched in 2016 to focus on investments in Portugal-based startups. The co-investment fund of €200m prioritizes startups based in the Northern, Central, Alentejo, Lisbon and Algarve regions. The fund matches up to 100% of the private investors’ commitment, subject to a minimum investment of €500,000 and a maximum of €5m. Recent investments include petfood e-commerce Barkyn's €1.1m seed round, €4.2m Series A of made-to-order designer Platforme and a €650,000 contribution in the second phase of healthy food service EatTasty's €1.75m seed round. 

In 2011, young Obi Ozor used his savings and loans from his family and friends to set up Bezmo Global to import second-hand trucks from the US and sell them in Nigeria. Despite suffering from kidney failure issues, he managed to run the business for four years to earn money to pay for his medical treatments. He fully recovered and moved to Michigan to continue his education.At the University of Michigan, Ozor met Ife Oyedele II and the two friends started an e-commerce venture to sell diapers and baby soap from the US to customers in Nigeria. Ozor moved to the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a BA International Relations and Finance at Wharton School of Business. In 2014, he gained some work experience in investment banking at JP Morgan in New York.In 2015, Ozor returned to Nigeria and joined Uber as operations coordinator. In 2016, the serial entrepreneur and his friend Oyedele co-founded Uber-style logistics platform Kobo360 in Lagos.

Pablo Zamora is a biotechnologist from the University of Santiago, where he worked as a professor and research scientist until 2008. In 2009, he started his postdoctoral research on Mexico’s maize genetics at UC Davis Life Science Innovation Center. He worked there as a senior scientist and associate until 2014. In 2015, he was appointed the center’s Chief Science Officer based in Chile, a position he was in till January 2018.From 2013–2015, he also worked on various plant and microbe genomics projects as a senior scientist in Mars Advanced Research Institute. He was also an editor from 2012–2017 at the Journal of Technology Management & Innovation and worked at the non-profit PIPRA from 2010–2018 as international alliance manager in Sacramento, University of California.In 2015, he co-founded The Not Company (NotCo) based in Santiago. He was appointed CSO in February 2018, a role he led until March 2020, when he left the company to focus on a new project, AptaBuilder, a $60m program that promotes R&D for Chilean technology-based ventures. Zamora still consults as NotCo’s senior scientific advisor.

Famous techpreneur Li Yinan (b. 1970) is the former CTO of Baidu and former CEO of Wuxian Xunqi, a China Mobile subsidiary. After Li graduated from Huazhong University of Science & Technology with a master’s degree in Optics Engineering, he joined Huawei and was promoted to vice-president of its Central Research Department in just six months; in 1997 Li because the youngest vice-president at Huawei. In 2001, Li quit Huawei and started his own data communication company, Harbour Networks, which followed the same structure of Huawei and soon became its main competitor. In 2005, Harbour Networks lost in its intense battle with Huawei and was acquired by the larger player. Even though Li rejoined Huawei after the acquisition, he was never able to re-enter the core management team because of his damaged relationship with Ren Zhengfei, the founder and president of Huawei. In April 2015, Li founded his smart e-scooter company, NIU Smart Scooters. Li began investing in 2010 and joined GSR Ventures in 2011. Up to June 2015, Li had invested in more than 10 companies from the TMT sector. Li stood trial for insider trading in March 2016, according to news reports.

Based in New York City, Lerer Hippeau mainly invests in seed and early-stage startups based in the US. Founded in 2010 by managing partners Kenneth Lerer, Ben Lerer and Eric Hippeau, the VC operates several funds offering initial investments of $1m per startup. Kenneth Lerer is the co-founder of Huffington Post and longtime chairman of BuzzFeed. Hippeau was the CEO of Huffington Post and ex-managing partner of Softbank Capital that invested in Huffington Post.Its 400+ startups also get support for business growth by tapping into tech ecosystems like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Its 80+ exits include Giphy (GIF) that was acquired by Facebook and home-fitness studio Mirror acquired by Lululemon. However, the IPO by portfolio company Bed-in-a-box online retailer Casper was below market expectations. The loss-making e-commerce unicorn went public at $12 a share in February 2020, closing at $13.50 on its first day out, for a market capitalization of less than half the $1.1 billion Casper was valued at in a private funding round in 2019.

Goat Capital is a venture capital fund was set up by video livestreamer Justin.tv and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan and Robin Chan, also an angel investor and entrepreneur. Chan met Kan while working at Verizon Wireless when Justin.tv was being launched. Both have since become private investors for over 10 years, with early investments including Twitter, Xiaomi, Bird, Uber and Square. Established in September 2020, the fund’s name was inspired by the goat because good startup founders need to be agile and resilient to survive and be successful, according to Kan.Kan was also an early investor of Indonesian payment gateway Xendit before Goat Capital joined Xendit’s $150m Series C round in September 2021. Goat Capital’s portfolio includes corporate credit card startup Kodo, Indian neobank Bueno Finance, carbon capture developers Holy Grail and web development tool Spore. The hybrid incubator and VC fund has already secured $25m and aims to raise a total of $40m to invest in diverse sectors like digital health, e-commerce, robotics, climate change and gaming entertainment. Funding per startup would range from $500,000 to $3m.

Early-stage-focused VC firm with a €24m first fund mainly investing in B2B and B2C digital startups headquartered in Spain. Initial investment amounts range between €70,000 and €300,000, and followup investment amounts go up to €1m per company. Describing themselves as “momentum investors” seeking quick time-to-market projects, Encomenda Smart Capital was founded in 2017 and managed by renowned Spanish angel investors Carlos Blanco, Oriol Juncosa and Miguel Sanz Sanchez, along with a network of angel investors  Encomenda supports the growth of startups' portfolios and helps startups to scale at national and international levels. Encomenda invests 30% in SaaS and in projects with a recurring income model; 20% are fintech, and they also bet on the human resources, edtech and healthcare. Just two out of 25 investments have folded up between 2017 and 2020, with half the fund monies committed. Encomenda is seeking to launch a second fund in 2022 focusing on Spanish and Portuguese startups, of €40m–€50m, and multi-stage, by starting in the early-stage investments, with follow-through investments in subsequent stages.

Alison Gelb Pincus is an entrepreneur who co-founded One King’s Lane, a direct-to-consumer home decor company which was sold to Bed, Bath & Beyond, and more recently, sustainable packaging start-up kari.earth. She is also an angel investor and founder of Short List Capital, a San Francisco-based early-stage VC collective run by women.  Short List Capital currently lists 20 companies in its portfolio, which has a focus on investing in e-commerce platforms with healthy, user-friendly or sustainable products. Gelb Pincus’s recent investments included participation in the May 2020 $5.3m seed round of US cookware maker Caraway and a 2015 investment in US-based unicorn Diamond Foundry, the first certified carbon-neutral lab-produced diamond manufacturer.Alison Gelb Pincus was married to Mark Pincus, the co-founder of Zynga and a founding investor in Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and Xiaomi.

Aspex Management was founded in 2018 by Hermes Li Ho Kei who was previously the executive MD and Head of Asia Equities at Och-Ziff Capital Management, aka OZ Management. Prior to joining OZ in 2011 Li worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co in Hong Kong.The London School of Economics graduate is now the chief investment officer at Aspex. The Hong Kong firm focuses on equity investments in Pan-Asia, specializing in sectors with long-term market growth potential and companies undergoing structural changes.Aspex led the $64m funding round for South Korean fintech unicorn Toss in August 2019. The P2P money transfer service platform Toss is created by Viva Republica backed by PayPal. Other participants in the round included existing Toss investors Kleiner Perkins, Altos Ventures, Singapore's GIC, Sequoia Capital China, Goodwater Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.In May 2020, Aspex also invested in another startup Market Kurly, a grocery-delivery service provider that became South Korea’s latest unicorn via the Series E funding round that secured $328m led by DST Global. In July, Aspex also joined the $900m Series C+ funding round of Xpeng Motors, Tesla’s EV rival in China.

Argentinian native Jorge Araujo Müller is co-founder and investor at Psquared, Spain’s first flexible workplace management and design company, Psquared, for hybrid workspaces, where he has worked since its foundation in April 2019.  Psquared is a spin-off of startup innovation hub CoBuilder, founded one year earlier and which Araujo co-founded.  He has several other roles. Since 2020, he is a co-founder at startup development agency We Are Grit and advisor of a talent agency for Latin Americans in Spain, Base España. He is also an investor and advisor at e-commerce recruitment agency RSV Outsourcing. Araujo also holds part-time educational roles, speaking on innovation at Barcelona’s ESADE institution to MBA students and as a mentor at Mexico’s chapter of the MassChallenge accelerator. Earlier, Araujo worked as a business advisor to the digital agency JustDigital, and was co-founder and sales director at the digital talent agency Bandit, for a year. Before that, from 2012–2016, he was CSO and co-founder of Barcelona-based startup Nubelo – a tech recruitment agency for freelancers – until it was acquired by Freelancer.com.  Prior to this, Araujo worked for two years as a business researcher at JP Morgan Chase and for almost two years at West Side Consultants, both in Argentina. Araujo holds a business administration qualification from CEMA University, Buenos Aires.In 2013, Araujo and his brother were named in Forbes Argentina’s 30 Promesas list of young entrepreneurs. 

Tessa Clarke is the British CEO and co-founder of food-sharing app OLIO that was inspired by her experience of having to throw away perfectly good unused food when she was packing up to move from Switzerland back to the UK in 2014.After graduating with a first-class degree in social and political sciences at the University of Cambridge in UK in 1997, she worked for three years at the Boston Consulting Group as a junior associate. She joined an MBA program at Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 2002 and met Saasha Celestial-One, who was also studying for an MBA at Stanford. In 2015, Clarke and Celestial-One decided to use their savings to create a food-sharing app OLIO after successfully testing the idea as a private WhatsApp group in North London.Before becoming an entrepreneur in 2015, Clarke has held various senior management roles since completing her MBA in 2004. She worked for global business publisher EMAP from 2005 until 2009, when she joined Dyson Inc as e-commerce managing director (MD). In 2013, she left Dyson to become MD of fintech PayLater based in Switzerland run by the Wonga payday loan company. Known then as Tessa Cook, she later became Wonga’s MD for eight months when she was tasked with “cleaning up” the tarnished reputation of the high interest loan company. From 2013 to 2021, she was also chair of the management board of St George’s Palace, a boutique apart-hotel and spa complex in Bansko, Bulgaria.In 2018, she became a fellow at Unreasonable, an organization that supports social and environmental entrepreneurship. For two years until 2021, Clarke was ambassador for the Meaningful Business 100 global event that advocates the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. She was also a board member for six years at Contentive, a global B2B media and information company. In 2021, her busy schedule now includes becoming a business mentor for not-for-profit Virgin Startup.

Sorry, we couldn’t find any matches for“A.I.R-e”.

Your payment was not successful.

Please make sure you have entered your payment details correctly. Or try again in a few moments.

small logo

The discount code you entered is invalid

Please make sure you have entered your discount code correctly. Or try again in a few moments.

Download successful.

Your sample has been sent. Please check your email.

By accessing and using www.compasslist.com and all pages within the domain (the “Website”), You accept and agree to have read, understood, accepted and agreed to be bound by the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy in full. If you disagree with all or any part of these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, please do not use or continue any further use of this website. You acknowledge that you are aware that this Website contains an archive of existing content as at 31 December 2021 and is not being actively managed. We are under no obligation to update the content on this Website and, accordingly, no new content or articles will be posted to the Website after 31 December 2021.