in the life of two visiting analysts: a new FRIENDSHIP, and lots of LEARNING
by a couple of students reflecting on their first internship in venture
JUNE 2022
by Cristina Hortala & Caterina Calisti
who are we?
Cristina: If you take a look at my LinkedIn profile, you’ll find that I studied Biomedicine at the University of Barcelona, I’m currently finishing a master degree in Clinical research, and did some internships here and there. My background is heavily life-science and research based.
If you’re reading this post, you probably don’t really care about that boring stuff. So, on a more interesting and fun note, I absolutely LOVE trying new things and starting my own little projects. My favorite part is trying to figure everything out by myself (and the internet).
Some honorable mentions include: growing 2mt-high tomato plants, baking (my family specially loved this one), oil painting, crocheting stuffed animals, becoming somewhat of a circus acrobat (I still go to climb up and drop from silks twice a week), and my personal favorite, incubating and hatching eggs and subsequently ending up with eight baby chicks during the COVID lockdown (this was my family’s LEAST favorite one, just fyi, turns out that chickens are really loud and messy).
I like to think that it’s my scientist soul that drives me to discover new things, as my one true passion has always been and always will be science, biology and medicine.
And for the last seven months, I’ve been a visiting analyst intern at Nina Capital in Barcelona.
Caterina: After living in Rome for 18 years, most of which spent learning ancient Greek, Latin, history, and philosophy, I made the brave choice not only to study Bioengineering, but also to do that in Switzerland, at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). So bye bye sun, Mediterranean cuisine based on olive oil and afternoons spent at the beach, and welcome snow, fondue and hiking (I always make jokes about Switzerland but deep down I actually like it).
After some initial struggles, numerous break downs, and a great amount of stress, which made me intolerant to gluten by the way (pretty ironic for an Italian — I know), I finally graduated in Life Sciences Engineering. Some positive highlights about my experience include a few of the most loyal and incredible people I have ever met, many interesting courses (no, I’m not talking about Analysis I, II, III or IV) and an exchange in Brussels. Hence why I decided to continue with my studies, and enrolled in a master program in Biomedical Engineering, also at EPFL, which I’m currently finishing. What I learnt from these years is that I am stronger and more resilient than I ever thought I was, and that science is pretty cool.
And for the last four months, I’ve been a visiting analyst intern at Nina Capital in Barcelona, now starting to work remotely with the team for the last two months of my internship in Switzerland.
what do we have in common?
Cristina: During college, research seemed like the only viable option after graduation, whether in the pursuit of a PhD, or in a R&D department at a big company. I love science with all my heart, but after actually doing some clinical research in a hospital, and many, MANY lab hours, I realized that — while it was very interesting — it didn’t quite do it for me.
What I really liked was learning about what others had discovered, but not necessarily spending months discovering it myself (maybe I should have thought about it a bit more before spending five years studying to be a researcher!).
So I found myself knowing what I did not want to do, but not what I wanted to do. So, why not try something completely different and new, which I knew absolutely nothing about? That is exactly what I told Marta during my interview. And she gave me a chance.
Caterina: During my bachelor and master programs I was taught some incredible technical skills and I learned about the human being from a scientific point of view, which was the main reason why I chose this field. Sadly, when it came to putting into practice the theoretical concepts previously learned, I found out that most of the tasks I was assigned to required little or no interaction with the other members of the team. They mainly consisted of conducting experiments or programming alone during the week and then just presenting the results by the fixed deadlines. Basically just hard skills and no soft skills.
When I enrolled in my final year of Master program, I was expected to have found a striking passion in a research or technology field. It did not happen. Not that I stopped liking human beings, but I found myself more passionate about health tech in general (the more different the projects or fields the better). Example: I love science but I don’t like spending hours debugging programs until my eyes bleed out, and I don’t necessarily wish to spend the rest of my life pipetting 24/7.
So I found myself knowing what I did not want to do, but not what I wanted to do. Bad life decisions? After confessing this to Marta, she surprisingly said that there was still hope.
what did we learn during our internship at Nina?
Since we knew close to nothing about venture capital, we had lots of learning to do. But the Nina team embraced their inner teachers and powered through our never ending list of questions.
On our very first week, Yahel took us to a meeting room and did a complete rundown of the VC ecosystem. That meant going through the very basics: what are the different stages of startups, the type of possible investments and the logic behind Nina Capital’s investment thesis?
We learned how to find the best pre-seed European companies, all of them definitely future unicorns. To be completely honest, finding interesting, innovative companies (that match our investment thesis) is hard work, and not as straightforward as one might think. And, apparently we have a very expensive taste, as most of the companies we liked had received wayyy too much funding for us to invest in. But thanks to the help of a very patient Ferran, who taught us how to actually do it, we finally ended up finding some good ones and made him proud. (Note by Marta: I can assure you that this is a very hard thing to do!)
We also learned about venture capital economics, which we had even less of an idea about. Sebastian prepared masterclasses to teach us about what a cap table looks like and how to calculate the ROI for a company. For two science students this sounded a little bit like sorcery, but now finance holds no secrets for us.
Finally, Marta’s teaching never stopped throughout the whole internship, from the very first day when she introduced us to the Biodesign method to every single time we had questions about terms we did not understand or just to fulfill our curiosity. Or, when she would occasionally point out mistakes that we had made without ever making us feel bad about them. She really guided and accompanied us during our months at Nina, both professionally and on a personal level.
One of us (we won’t say who), even learned Spanish during their stay in Barcelona, and we think that is worth mentioning as well.
what did we do?
Our main responsibilities were:
- Manage the dealflow (e.g. screening and organizing new companies that reached out through Nina’s webform, searching for startups that matched our investment criteria).
- Participate in calls with companies to learn more about what they do and presenting them in our team weekly meetings.
- Contribute to market research about specific verticals.
- Help prepare investment documents for future portfolio companies.
- Basically, help with anything the team might need.
Time with Nina’s team was not only spent within the office’s walls.
They made sure we would get to know the rest of the team by organizing several bonding activities such as hiking in La Mola with a delicious lunch as a reward once arrived at the top of the mountain, spending Art & Wine and Mug painting evenings together (see the picture below for the final masterpieces), and going to a classical music concert in Palau de la Música Catalana. Indeed, Barcelona has a lot to offer when it comes to fun and relaxing activities.
Cristina: Two months into my internship, Caterina joined the team. A few days prior, Marta asked me if I could leave my big screen and spacious desk to sit with her for a couple weeks in order to help her feel welcome and show her around the office. Not only did I permanently move in next to her, but I also somehow ended up showing her around Barcelona, Madrid, La Costa Brava, Sitges… And will be visiting her in Switzerland in two weeks. I would just miss her too much if I had to wait any longer.
Caterina: relationships wise, my stay in Barcelona can be summarized in one word: Cristina. When I first landed here, I did not know anyone and was not sure what to expect. Afterwards, on my very first day, Cristina and I walked around in sunny Barcelona (which was actually quite rainy for the following weeks, apparently due to my Suisse influence) and started making new plans. I did not know Catalunya very well, and she has been the perfect guide around so many incredible places. Without her, my experience would have been different and I am so glad I had the luck to meet her and to call her my friend now.
what did we like the most of our time here?
In the spirit of not making this excessively long we selected just a few things we liked MOST of our time here:
- Weekly meetings.
Every week we would gather around a big table in Nina’s open office and we would brainstorm about companies we had seen during the week. Participating in the team’s analysis has indeed been one of the most pedagogic parts of our internship. Also, every week we had one-to-one meetings with Marta, who would always ask us how we were doing and if there were other projects we wanted to be involved in, as well as ask us for feedback.
- Getting to search companies in verticals that interested us
We have been strongly encouraged to pursue our interests and passions within our work here at Nina, the most clear example being getting to choose a vertical (in our case pediatrics, femtech and few others) and look for companies in that space.
- Feeling valued.
As an intern in any company, one would expect to do the jobs nobody wants to do, not participate too much, and have little to say in important matters. At Nina this is not the case at all. Since day one we were included in their meetings, were asked about our opinions on companies we screened and were given a voice. We were truly part of the team.
bye bye for now
To conclude this post and this experience, we would like to thank Nina’s team personally for how much they have taught us and welcomed us every single day of our stay. A special thank you to Marta, who believed in us and in our potential when we, ourselves, were struggling to fit in. She introduced us to an entirely new world and the countless opportunities it offers. We hope to stay in touch and as we say in Latin… AD MAIORA.
Cristina & Caterina (aka, C & C)
