a MEDICAL DOCTOR walks into a venture capital firm and…
…has a summer MBA internship at the intersection of medicine, business, and Biodesign.
AUGUST 2021
By Albert Navasa
My path to a venture capital firm is most certainly atypical, which only contributed to making me a great match for Nina Capital. My name is Albert Navasa and I am currently pursuing an MBA at IESE Business School in Barcelona. Prior to starting the MBA, I graduated in medicine at the University of Barcelona, to later start the specialty of cardiovascular surgery at the Bellvitge University Hospital. After realizing that I did not want to spend the rest of my professional life in an operating room, I pivoted towards the pharmaceutical industry where I worked at Bayer Pharmaceuticals as a Medical Advisor for three years.
During my first year at IESE I talked to many different people to figure out in which exact field I wanted to do my summer internship. I am a huge fanatic of endurance sports and initially thought about exploring the sports business sector, but a IESE class and the Covid-19 pandemic made me start thinking about an alternative: the venture capital sector.
It was during IESE’s March 2021 career fair that I first heard about Nina Capital. Before attending a company presentation by Marta Gaia Zanchi, its founder, I started searching for information about the fund and was surprised at how successful they had been even though they had just started in Barcelona two years ago. During Marta’s presentation, my positive initial assumptions were confirmed, so I decided to apply to the summer internship they were offering.
During my interviews — one with Marta and one with Marc, her partner at the firm — we talked about my background and how I could potentially collaborate with Nina Capital. A few weeks after, they told me that they wanted to work with me during the summer.
Despite the fact that at that time I was also in a couple of other selection processes, the choice was tremendously easy, not only because of the opportunity to work in the VC world but also because of the good feeling that Marta and Marc transmitted to me throughout the process.
My role at Nina Capital
During my three months at Nina Capital, I have worked as an MBA Summer Intern on three projects:
Project #1 (60% of the time)
Since its beginning, Nina Capital collaborates all the time with physicians across Europe and the US in connection with the analysis of needs addressed by health technology startups that the firm is considering for investment. The team asked me to lead an effort to conceptualize a framework for the “medical advisors network” involved in the validation process of new investments. I conducted interviews with all the members of the team to understand and crystallize Nina’s priorities, talked with physicians to appreciate what continues to motivate them to advise the firm, and brainstormed numerous solutions for implementation.
Project #2 (30% of the time)
I supported the day-to-day activities related to investment operations. This included dealflow generation, investment analysis, and knowledge sharing with the rest of the team.
Project #3 (10% of the time)
Occasionally, I lent a hand in work related to portfolio management. This included responding to requests for advice and network introductions by our portfolio companies, especially on matters related to clinical trial design and access to clinical/scientific experts, respectively.
In addition to working on these three projects, I have been attending and participating in the weekly team meetings, where each team member shared their progress on what they had been working on as well as asked for advice in case it was needed.
My personal experience at Nina Capital
Before I started the MBA, my knowledge about the venture capital world was limited to a few points that I learned from a former manager from my previous job, who was raising money for her startup. By that time, I already found it quite interesting, but it was not until during the MBA that I really started learning about it and felt attracted. My medical background obviously directed me to search for a fund that invested in healthcare; thus, Nina Capital was the perfect match for me.
While doing my summer internship at Nina Capital, I realized that I could not have chosen a better fund to have a first real contact with the VC world. Being a small fund, it allowed me to integrate perfectly in the team and learn about the different tasks that they accomplish: dealflow generation, investment analysis, portfolio management, raising a fund and many more that I would not have been able to see in first hand if I had worked for a bigger fund.
Following the Biodesign thinking process, a methodology imported by Marta from her direct experience in Silicon Valley, I tackled my main project. This meant that there was a lot of trial and error which required an open mind — to be flexible, not defensive about my initial thoughts and closed to other ideas that differed from them. This attitude of not being afraid of “being wrong” to achieve the ultimate goal of learning has helped me a lot in finding the optimal solution, and I can assure that I will use this process more often from now on. Moreover, I always felt supported by the rest of the team, received a lot of positive feedback and felt that my ideas and conclusions were really taken into account.
Besides working on the main project, the feeling of being one more member of the team — while trying to learn and help as much as possible — has been a very enriching experience that has allowed me to perfectly clarify what a VC fund specialized in health tech does on an everyday basis.
Acknowledgements
Last but not least, I would like to thank the entire Nina Capital team for being constantly available and kindly providing valuable guidance throughout the duration of the internship. Each member of the team has helped me in their own way and has taught me very valuable skills that I am sure will be useful in not only my professional life, but also in my personal life.
If you are interested in the venture capital world, I could not think of a better place than Nina Capital to do an internship and learn about this amazing sector, while having fun and being part of an amazing team.
Albert Navasa
