“We Don’t Believe in Taking Short-Cuts” with Santi Subotovksy

I had the pleasure of interviewing Santi Subotovksy, who is a General Partner with Emergence Capital, a leading Venture firm that invests in people that are changing the way the world works. Before joining Emergence, Santi founded AXG Tecnonexo, a SaaS e-learning company in Argentina. He expanded the company to 150+ employees with operations across Latin America and the U.S.

Jean: Can you share your story about how you got into the VC space? I’m a native of Argentina. I lived and worked there until 2002. In 1999, I founded AXG Tecnonexo, a SaaS e-learning company, that I grew to 150+ employees with operations across Latin America and the US. Through my work at Tecnonexo I was selected to be an entrepreneur with Endeavor, an incredible organization that helps build and support entrepreneurial ecosystems outside the U.S. In 2006, Endeavor invited me to join a group of entrepreneurs visiting Silicon Valley, and there I was exposed for the first time to VC. That’s when I realized I had to move to Silicon Valley, join a VC firm, learn how investors made decisions and then leave to start another company. I moved to Silicon Valley without a job and started meeting a lot of people. It wasn’t easy as I didn’t have a strong network and my football (soccer) was different than the football everyone was talking about… That’s how I met the team at…