What’s a guy like me doing in a place like this? Technology as a central part of K Fund’s analysis process
That’s the first thing that crossed my mind when the option to join K Fund was presented. I thought a little bit about it, but the willingness to do things differently in the Spanish Venture Capital industry was too appealing.
My experience as an app developer and my previous tenure at an investment bank for more than 9 years did not fit, in theory, with the needs of a VC like K Fund.
But that’s precisely why there was a clear fit: because to do things differently, not having previous experience in a certain field can be an advantage. Since I’ve joined K Fund, I’ve realised that my contributions to the firm can go well beyond the simple task of managing finances.
I always knew that I’d get fired from the bank that I was working at, and that’s why I kept programming in my spare time and why I made a conscious effort to closely follow the latest trends in the world of technology. Surprisingly, I never got fired from my previous job, but one day I did make the decision to leave behind what I’d been doing for quite some time and to put in action what I had learned by myself and my abilities as a programmer.
In a previous post, my colleague Pablo Ventura wrote about the reasons why a VC might say no to your startup. A lack of understanding of the technology being used, as well as its limitations and also its potential, was mentioned as one of the reasons behind these rejections. This lack of familiarity with technology is often used as an excuse to explain the proliferation of ‘simple’ models such as ‘the Amazon of supermarkets’ or ‘the Uber of delivery’.
In order to increase our investment horizon, a technical due diligence is a central part of K Fund’s analysis process, where we not only look at the underlying technology of companies, but also at aspects related to QA, system’s security, etc.
This is key for us when it comes to making investment decisions, and it also helps us stay away from the comfortability of traditional or well-established models.
We don’t want to invest in the next Theranos or Ubeam, but in companies with solid technology fundamentals and with the potential of changing existing markets.
A few months later, now I’m totally sure that a guy like me can provide solid contributions to a firm like this.
