[WANTED] Tech and product rockstar willing to jump into startup investing to help us find the next European unicorns!

We are looking for an associate to grow our Southern Europe team with a solid academic and professional tech/product background aiming at finding the most exciting cutting-edge companies across the continent!

Who we are

Samaipata is an early-stage pan-European venture capital (fund investing in tech-enabled early stage companies, AKA “startups”). The fund was created by two entrepreneurs, José del Barrio, co-founder of the leading food-delivery platform in Spain (La Nevera Roja) sold to Rocket Internet for $100 million, and Eduardo Díez-Hochleitner founder of a 3D sound system sold to Dolby (IMM Sound), former partner at Apax Partners, prolific business angel and current Chairman at MásMóvil, taken over for €5 billion in 2020.

Samaipata invests in digital platforms and marketplaces (more on this here) at Seed stage in Southern Europe, France, the UK and Germany. We are now a remote-first company with team members distributed across Spain, Portugal, France, the UK and the US.

After closing our first €30m fund back in 2016, we invested in 17 companies across Europe, such as Ontruck, Matera, Deporvillage, Legl, Streamloots, Motley, Colvin, or Foodchéri (you can check out our full portfolio here). We launched our second fund (€100m) in 2020 and we have already closed 5 investments. Come join us! 🔥 More details on our investment thesis here.

What are the requirements to apply

• Academic background: Computer or Telecommunications Engineering.
• Professional experience: 4–5 years of work experience in tech/product teams. Some examples of previous roles include: former founder of a startup with a position in the tech or product team, product manager, tech lead, staff engineer, junior tech principal
• Be business-driven: genuine interest in the adventure of building companies (i.e. you are not only obsessed with technology per se, but also like to see businesses built upon it). MBA, CFA or similar studies are a plus.
• Bilingual in Spanish and English: both written & communication skills. Additional languages appreciated.
• A strong internet connection! As a remote-first company, you can work wherever you want. You just need to live in a (+/-3h) CET time zone.

What does an Associate do and why is it so cool

An Associate is at the core of our investment process. It is the gatekeeper between Samaipata and the tens of thousands of startups born in Europe every year. You will be the 1st contact point for entrepreneurs and the ultimate responsible for finding the hidden future European unicorns! Let me run you through the core responsibilities:

• Reflecting and thinking: being thoughtful is our core value. We expect you to allocate significant time to reading, writing your own posts/essays, debating and sharing knowledge about technology both inside and outside Samaipata. We operate in a fast-paced environment where information gets obsolete everyday. Staying on top of trends, and building your own opinion on what’s happening around the tech world is key to become a great startup investor!
• Sourcing deals: as the first contact point for entrepreneurs you will get to personally meet +600 startup teams and to analyze thousands of software products aiming at changing the world through technology every year. Thanks to our proprietary sourcing tools we are able to identify tens of thousands of companies being born across Europe and process them to focus on the ones that match our investment criteria. You are meant to be the one finding in Southern Europe the next European unicorn such as Spotify, Adyen, Deliveroo, Glovo or OVH!
• Deal execution: as a member of the investment team you will be a core part of our intense and futuristic debates on where the world is heading thanks to technology. We have weekly internal meetings to discuss startups disrupting the economy (the best out of all the ones you will be speaking with!), and we expect you to contribute actively. Also, given our work is ultimately about taking the risk to invest into businesses, you will be supporting the team in our due diligence of companies (this is the work we do in order to decide whether we are putting money into a crazy early stage startup or not!).
• Platform building: As a founders’ fund one of our core strengths is our entrepreneurial DNA. Just like the companies we invest in, we are constantly innovating internally creating new processes and improving existing ones, building internal tools, testing and iterating new initiatives, learning from mistakes, etc. We aim at building the coolest VC platform and we expect your proactivity in making that happen too!
• Portfolio: we can’t wait to introduce you to the Samaipata family, a portfolio of +20 European platforms (+20 more new investments to join in 3–4 years) challenging the status quo and our daily source of inspiration. As an associate you will get to see businesses scale from being an idea on a post-it to becoming a +$1b company! You can check the full portfolio here.
• Network: finally, as an investor you are expected to build relationships with investors, entrepreneurs, companies, etc. Interactions with others will help you grow as an investor (learning from other deals, markets, success stories) and will also allow you to share investment opportunities and knowledge with others as you help the startup ecosystem to further evolve.

All in all if you want to witness and support yourself the birth of cutting edge technology across Europe (your decision to back a company could change artificial intelligence or blockchain forever!), if you have an entrepreneurial soul (perhaps you think of becoming one yourself in a few years time), and you love thoughtfulness as a state of mind, Samaipata is your home!

Why we need you in the investment team

As already mentioned above we want to strengthen our tech and product related knowledge in our investment team. We want to be surrounded by someone who has built software to tackle customer needs, has coded with its own hands, and has a technical understanding of challenges. We want you because of:

• The tech truth: A lot of the questions to be answered to decide to invest in a company are eminently technical and objective, and we want to have your technical contribution as part of the debate. This is becoming more and more key as technology grows in complexity!
• Diversity: We are a highly diverse team in all senses, and we acknowledge that diversity makes us stronger as investors. We all contribute to the company vision from our own backgrounds, personalities, perspectives, etc. The more diverse the merrier. That’s why we are once again looking for a genuinely different profile. To take our team to the next level!
• Building: We are all builders inside Samaipata, creating processes, tools, projects, etc. Having a tech/product profile in your team will further contribute to our platform building obsession in all ways ;)

On top of this, a genuine Samaipater needs to have these superpowers:

• Improving 1% every day, always raising the bar.
• High intellectual curiosity: You have an insatiable desire to learn, and a tendency to dig deep into obscure ideas.
• Passion & drive for Tech and a deep respect for entrepreneurs.
• Strong analytical skills & a data-driven mindset: you’re rigorous & exhaustive (when needed) and you use data to inform decision making.
• Be able to apply an 80/20 approach: make sure the trees don’t prevent you from seeing the forest as a whole (zoom in and zoom out!).
• Independent thinking: you’re comfortable being a contrarian, you think for yourself, and you’re not risk averse.
• Great team player: your energy (whatever your personality is) is contagious.
• Excited about the new remote-first era: we are frequently in touch online and we gather monthly, but you need to be autonomous and able to learn fast to fly on your own.

What we have to offer

We operate like a startup, not a fund. And, as such, an Associate joining the team will:

• Be an integral part of a young, hungry and international squad with a flat hierarchy, where everyone is contributing to make our thinking stronger and our processes better!
• Be on a long-term partner track. You will know how your path to grow inside Samaipata looks like from day 1. Continuing to learn and improve everyday is our obsession and we will put every resource at your disposal to enable you to do so.
• Have a real impact on our strategy in Southern Europe. We want you to have ownership in the region and co-lead all our efforts to continuously strengthen our market positioning.
• Finally, we are a remote-first company. So you can work from wherever you want ! And we can ensure a large amount of independence for doers. We’re here to support you, not to micromanage you.