Discover the new venture capital funds that have been created mainly in Spain by venture capital firms recently. In this post we talk about the funds Amaranthine de Web Summit, Alma Mundi Insurtech Fund, Ventura Equity Partners and Queka Real Partners.

Web Summit plans to create a venture capital fund

According to a report published by the Financial Times, the organisation Web Summit filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to create a $50 million venture capital fund called Amaranthine based in San Francisco. While the existence of this fund was previously known, its connection to Web Summit was unrelated.

Web Summit will take advantage of the enormous amount of information it collects on the thousands of startups and attendees that come to its annual event in Lisbon, where the organisers have also signed an agreement to keep the conference in Lisbon for another 10 years.

The founders of Web Summit previously invested in building a data science team, developing search algorithms and video capture systems to track movement throughout the event. This has created a treasure trove of information that the new venture fund can use to identify start-ups.

Alma Mundi Ventures, the first Spanish venture capital fund to invest in Insurtech

Javier Santiso, president of the management Alma Mundi Venturesregistered a venture capital fund with the CNMV in October that will focus on SMEs in the insurtech market. It is the first vehicle of its kind to emerge in Spain.

Called the Alma Mundi Insurtech Fund, the new fund will seek to raise funds of between 40 and 100 million euros to support early-stage or expanding technology companies related to the insurance industry that offer solutions based on the possibilities of artificial intelligence or big data.

Alma Mundi Ventures has 18 months to close this fund and expects to be able to deploy the investment strategy over the next three years. During this period, they expect to take stakes in between 15 and 25 European SMEs in general.

Ventura Equity to invest 500 million in Spain

The firm is born Ventura Equity Partners which aims to invest close to 500 million euros to support Spanish and Portuguese companies in their internationalisation process. This project is the brainchild of its two managing partners, Iñaki Echave and Mateo Pániker, two professionals with more than 20 years of experience in the sector, in firms such as Blackstone, Investindustrial, the Canadian fund CPPIB, 3i and Magnum.

The idea of this new fund is not to compete with the large international funds operating in Spain, but to fill the gap that Spanish funds do not normally reach. That is to say, to attack the segment of companies with a value of 50 to 300 million, "with a maximum equity amount per transaction of 30 to 100 million", says Pániker.

The firm, which will have a team of around 12 professionals and offices in Madrid and Barcelona, is currently in the process of fundraising, although it has already committed part of the 500 million it has set as a target. In this sense, it has a significant personal and family investment commitment from the two managing partners, as well as the initial support of a number of prestigious family offices, including the firm Kereon Partners.

It is expected, however, that most of the funds will come from international institutional investors: "The idea is to have a fixed fund of 300 million, with the rest coming from co-investment.

Patrick Gandarias launches Queka Real Partnes fund

Patrick Gandarias, who was a partner at Corpfin Capital for 25 years, returns to the business under the Queka Real Partners project. Patrick has set up a private equity project in record time with Castellón-based investor Enrique Martinavarro, owner of Auriga and one of the region's biggest fortunes.

In principle, although they are at a preliminary stage, they are aiming to raise around €100 million for an opportunistic fund, far from the profile where projects of this size are already competing. In addition to Gandarias, with more than extensive experience in the sector, the management team of Queka Real Partners is composed of Diego Figueroa and Luis Martinavarro, both from Auriga.

To get a good understanding of how venture capital works, you can take a look at our section HowTowhere you will find many explanations of investment funds and other topics.