A Journey From Nothing to Venture Capital: Joining Kibo Ventures
My name is Pol Fañanás, and after 4.5+ years as startup operator, I am announcing that I am joining the great investment team of Kibo Ventures!
I was planning a shorter post, but some friends, and peer Fellows on Included VC, helped me understand that sharing my journey (even if it meant being vulnerable) maybe could help others. Especially in an instagrammed world where everything seems to be so bright and communications tend to be short sighted/opaque whilst the reality is way more scrappy.
I failed (and learned) a lot and will continue to do so. I have been given great opportunities and I am aware and thankful. And I am not writing to be an example of anything.
I just want and wish to share transparently and without significant BS — hopefully helping some reader (even if it’s only one) understand how a journey can materialise. I also wanted to say thank you to Kibo Ventures team for the amazing opportunity and to incredible supporters like Included VC (and the whole community) for the heartfelt help.
Before we begin, some highlights:
- 🎢 Rollercoaster from the bottom: coming from a different place
- 🔥 From failure to failure w/o loss of enthusiasm: failing & learning
- 🦾 Starting in startups: becoming a tech startup operator
- ⛰️ ️Soul searching: emptiness, finding Catholic Faith & helping others
- 💜 Included VC as secret sauce: the power of a great community
- 🛠️ Finding my why VC: clicking with venture capital
- 🙏 Breaking into VC, joining Kibo Ventures: finally investor
- ⏩ What’s next: investing, interviewing, teaching, advising & helping
🎢 Rollercoaster from the bottom
I was born in Sabadell, a city close to Barcelona (Spain), far away from the flashing lights of the sexiest startup and VC world. I grew up in an area that the local newspaper once defined with an average income per capita of <€11k/year. In this type of personal and socioeconomic background for which some people use the word “humble”, that translates for limited resources, low education, unemployment, not always the best life decisions and not super hopeful future options. Nothing special, like everyday many more people do.
An example? Volunteering in prison and seeing how a few of the incarcerated young men are originally from my area, or coming back to my block at night and not being able to get to my own home because police and firemen are blocking the access, due to a fire caused by some neighbours that turned out to have a drug lab that exploded.
OK, maybe 2 negative & catchy examples. Also good stuff like having option to fundamental resources such as roof, food and schooling (a much more advantageous situation than many others), growing up valuing the importance of simple things and having an opportunity to cultivate a fired up drive.
Anyway, for some reason yet to be fully revealed to me, I believe a mix of obsessive hustle (don’t ask my therapist), daydreaming (what an undervalued asset!) and some heavy heaven sent support (for real) helped me move forward, in a pretty rollercoaster-not-straight-not-easy type of line to be honest.
Lesson #1: The journey can be hard and feel unfair, but do no feed self pity. Accept the challenging rollercoaster as positively as you can, hustle hard and fight but do not grow in hate. See it as a tranformative and differential opportunity for a better future and act accordingly. Building up hope, even if it is by daydreaming, can improve the odds.
🔥From failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm
It is the end of the 2011/2012 academic year, I am just finishing my 1st university year and I am looking at my computer to double check if it is really true that I failed 7/10 subjects, achieving a 3/10 average grade. Summer is coming but I can’t go anywhere — I do not even have €100 in my bank account nor a job to get it. I feel ashamed of being an example of a poor unemployed school failure, but not surprised; conscious in part of being immersed in a wrong lifestyle and mindset, I almost did not even finish high school the year before. I hit rock bottom and saw myself as a complete waste. Time for the accountability mirror.
I did not want to feel like that ever again so I started to take extreme ownership, improving significantly my academic performance, getting into one of the top groups of my promotion and finding a job … a really cool crossover of unicorn founder & VC! — Just kidding, I spent some time as ground staff at the Airport of Barcelona to get some money. And to be honest, it was thanks to a friend that I got that job because if not, probably I would have been quickly rejected. I never told her how much I needed that money and how much it helped me, it was too shameful.
So I «night-shifted» in the airport whilst in university (fun paradox given that I didn’t have much money to travel anywhere) and had some fun and wild adventures. For example, being escorted by the police when having to try to calm a few tens/hundreds of mad passengers frustrated by awful airline service after they tried (and in some cases achieved) to beat me or some colleague. But also beautiful moments, like accompanying kids travelling alone and helping them feel less scared in such a big unknown world. Advice: be good to people in the jobs some consider simple, you never know how hard can it be and what are they going through.
Eventually, I became the first in my close family that graduated both high school and university, and the startup world was the next step.
Lesson #2: A small secret … you will fail and it is okay. Get back up and try again. Take ownership of your life and stop blaming other individuals or circumstances.
🦾Starting in startups
I started in the startups in 2015, first at Loanbook (once a leading marketplace lending fintech in Spain with €50M+ loans provided, now defunct), next at Kantox (FX/payments fintech with $10B+ transactions done and $40M+ funding by Partech, Idinvest and others). And I freakin’ loved the concept of an outlier building world changing technology from scratch, creating value out of nothing and making a major impact from a tech, business and social angle. But, I also wanted more structured learnings and big corporate experience, so I worked as a consultant at EY’s Transaction Advisory Services too. There I realized I loved the tech startup world and I wanted to go for it.
After significant effort and lots of rejections I arrived at the critical moment you see in movies, when a small answer changes everything for the better: it was the last stage of the application process for a top Google graduate program in the EU HQ. A kid from my block? You had to be kidding, no way. But there I was, that was my moment, my life changing moment…
“Kid goes from nothing to Google, finally stops worrying desperately about a better tomorrow, everything was worthy.”
And just when I was already seeing myself enjoying that free Google breakfast I read about in articles, I got the life changing answer: Sorry but no. Damn, that was painful. Nevertheless also useful. It came with the realization that tech was booming and ignited even more my fire to be in the game.
I changed my approach. New plan: go straight to a super early stage startup with potential of doing something cool, where I believe that I can add value whilst learning, and where I can make a relevant impact, growing together with the team. I started at Validated ID thanks to a suggestion by a friend and I had the opportunity to support the founders in multiple functions. We went from a small e-signature company bootstrapping through consulting services, to a B2B scale up trust service provider, focused on e-signature and decentralized identity. The whole experience was a blessing.
Then one day, I came across the VC world. It was while doing the 1st fundraising for Validated ID. We met/talked/connected with 74 VCs, travelling around multiple countries including Europe and U.S. West Coast, and it ended up being a huge learning experience that stuck with me.
I remember the vibe, the hustle, the huge impact a yes from one of these players could have in a company and consequently in society, the apparent lack of innovation and outliers in an industry based on finding innovation and outliers, the influence their work had in shaping the future, the curiosity, the passion, the super talented counterparts but also the lack of tech and operator backgrounds, the fun fight of searching, pitching, analysing, negotiating, convincing, closing, supporting … but I was heads down focused on my startup role at that moment. We raised VC money, I continued working as operator and we continued growing.
Lesson #3: Be curious, learn constantly, plan simply, execute hard, do not ever give up and be thankful for the opportunities and trust received.
⛰️Soul searching
However once I got my university degree, some experience in interesting jobs, and for the first time in my life, some money in my bank account, something happened…
An enormously deep void started growing within me and impacting me personally and professionally. I had always dealt with negative feelings in my life but given that I was not in the ideal circumstances I wanted, I thought that those negative feelings were driven by external things such as the lack of better material stuff. However, once my context started to improve in the material sense, I did not felt better, in fact I felt worse. I just did not understand, felt really alone as I had no one guiding me through this and became very frustrated. Was life just about fighting, hustling, working, improving, going to sleep and repeat, a constant struggle? And if that is not enough for you then just look for a temporary escape route blocking the noise by partying, drinking or whatever random hobby? It felt super empty and sad.
Deep into this bad mood, I hit rock bottom again. I ended up looking for something important I was missing, although I did not know what. And as crazy as it may sound (and I can tell you it still sounds really crazy to me), I ended up finding it in a Church in some Catalan mountains in the middle of nowhere. I found Catholic Faith and it helped me deeply.
From there on Catholic Faith became one of the most important parts of my life. I was helped and hence started to help others. That led me to take part in multiple social projects such as volunteering in the Spanish prison system, in Nepal with the Missionaries of Charity and in an Orphanage in Palestine.
Lesson #4: Sometimes surrendering can be winning. Being humble enough to embrace your biggest weaknesses is powerful and can help you deeply. And more importantly, can help you help others. It is not only about surviving, fighting and progress. “If I do not have love, I am nothing.”
💜Included VC as secret sauce
And one day, unexpectedly, I found Included VC (and what a new blessing!). The first of its kind Venture Capital Fellowship founded on empowering diverse high potential outliers and providing them access to the best education, network and mentoring from the some of the best VCs in the world. The Venture Partners: Creandum, Daphni, European Investment Fund, HSBC, Kaya VC (formely ENERN), K Fund, M12 Microsoft Ventures, Mangrove, Mouro Capital, Notion Capital, Seedcamp and Wilson Sonsini.
I reluctantly applied (pretty sure of not having a chance) and after a semi blind process, got selected as an inaugural Fellow among over 1000 candidates. The value of the Fellowship was simply ground breaking. Suddenly, I went from fighting to get our Validated ID fundraising completed to having unique differential access to top notch education by awesome VCs. For example, Chris Tottman shared with us the grind of emerging from a working-class background, with no university education, to becoming an early employee and c-level at a $700M exit, before founding a $500M+ VC. Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Managing Partner at one of the best early stage VCs in Europe, shared with us how top deals like Hopin work (Europe’s fastest growing startup of all time) and how the VC fundraising process can be a crazy rollercoaster even for Tier 1 firms.
The feeling of being part of a relevant heartfelt community itself was incredible too. The financial and time commitment of the Venture Partners, led by the great Included VC Co-founder & Director Nikita Thakrar (alongside Stephen Millard & Chris Tottman)was equally astonishing- what a powerhouse she is! With Fellows ranging from Mariam Hakobyan (who casually managed motherhood alongside being a VC Fellow and the Co-founder and CEO of a no code platform (Softr), which raised $2M+ VC money, all in <1 year) to Hasan Sukkar (Syrian refugee turned engineer, turned McKinsey consultant). The Fellowship ended up creating a really rare vibe of empowerment and belief. A family.
So although the high barriers of entry for someone coming from my socioeconomic background didn’t draw an easy first step (no top educational background, no top IB/PE/VC/management consulting job experience), I started to find my place within VC.
Lesson #5: Ask and accept help when you need it. Respect those that gave you the opportunity by making the most out of it, surround yourself with people that lift you up, act today but have a long term mindset, and give back as much as you can.
🛠️Finding my why VC
I believe if you find a calling that can create a positive value for the world, that you love and where you think you could add something, you’ve probably found a strong why.
In VC I found great timing to have a major impact in not just technology and business, but culture and society as a whole. A daily job I could love based on constant exposition to incredible people building cool valuable things, whilst still having to keep your feet on the ground and achieve a way to make that value tangible by bringing returns to investors, flagrant growth opportunities characterised by a relevant learning curve, and a unique platform to leverage my operator experience in order to help entrepreneurs (the most important part of the ecosystem) as much as I humbly can while ideally providing some much needed diversity of views.
Lesson #6: Who has a why can bear any how.
🙏Breaking into VC, Joining Kibo Ventures
And finally and easily, VC right? Again, not really. My first contact with Kibo Ventures was meeting with Sonia Fernández (Partner) and Juan López (Principal) months ago, due to their interest in Validated ID. The feeling was good but still, as an operator you see lots of VCs. Although I understood these relations are important, I still was only focused on the company. And honestly, I do not think I was much of a recruiting target either.
I continued allocating time to learning through Included VC and was given the chance to help as an advisor. Then I co-founded VIEWS newsletter, got quite a bit of growth and had the possibility to meet a wide range of amazing operators and investors. Thus, my conviction grew. And something happened. One of our questions is top 3 investors you would recommend and one name kept coming out repeatedly: Kibo Ventures.
So I checked them out and I found a European VC with €240M AUM, 4 funds, and an incredible traction over the last 12 months , including 3 unicorns and 1 IPO filing.
With portfolio companies like:
- Flywire (payments fintech currently planning a NASDAQ IPO, $320M+ funding by Goldman Sachs, Temasek, Bain Capital and Spark Capital, among others)
- TIER (mobility, $388M funding by Northzone and Softbank, among others)
- Jobandtalent (HR tech, $300M+ funding by Atomico, Blackrock & Softbank, among others)
- Devo (cloud-native data analytics and cybersecurity, $131M funding by Insight Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, among others)
And what spoke to me was:
- Reputation. Networks play a far bigger role than I think people realize. I started meeting an increasing number of founders that, without any need to do so, constantly shared how Kibo was instrumental in the good and bad times, providing relevant value and overall support.
- Style. Based in Spain, but with global vision, tech focus but agnostic so able to react rapidly and with range to different cool opportunities. Early stage so I could leverage my experience and be more useful than in later stages, but also ready to follow on so you can provide startups with the best long term support. Talented but also nice people, successful but positively ambitious and hungry for more, and looking forward to give relevant opportunities and responsibilities to new profiles like myself.
- Team. One thing I have learnt over the years is that people is a primary force in any endeavour. Especially in worlds like VC with such small teams and so much at stake, your colleagues can end up being like part of your family. The vibe is important! On a professional and personal level, the feeling with the entire Kibo Ventures’ team has been great. One interesting thing to keep in mind, is that even though people is probably the most important part, info about reputation and style travels faster some times.
- Potential to improve. And still, even taking into account so many positive things, I think there is potential to improve and things that could be better. And they are aware, they are working on it and they are open to offer a good fight for whoever wants to join them. It’s exciting to be amongst fantastic team of individuals working towards improvement, who are willing to listen and receive as much help as they can get.
Ultimately, the mix of who I am, why VC, why Kibo and the fact that an opening in the investment team was made public, motivated me to apply. The process was really competitive. I met and clicked with the whole team along the way and was grateful enough to receive the blessing of being part of Kibo Ventures family.
Lesson #7: If you come from far away the flashing lights, you will have to work super hard, hustle, build up antifragility, have a long term mindset and still you will fail and things outside your control may help or not. But you can achieve way more than you think (or have been told).
⏩ What’s next?
I have moved from Barcelona to Madrid and I will be working full time as part of the investment team at Kibo Ventures. If you are a founder building something and considering fundraising, you can send me an email at pol@kiboventures.com.
Additionally, I will continue to interview some of the best VC investors and tech startup operators in the game. If you want to learn from their top insights, you can subscribe to VIEWS.
Finally, I’d love to continue helping, so as far as I can I will continue giving support as an alumni to Included VC, advisor to Validated ID, teaching at ESADE university and taking part in social initiatives.
If you’d like to connect/chat/ask me anything, you can reach out via Twitter and LinkedIn. :)
Big thank you Kibo Ventures team for the new adventure ahead! ❤️
Big thank you Included VC and all of the Venture Partners for your impactful help to me and many others — it will not be forgotten! ❤️
