Is it Venture Capital for me? How can I know it? Understanding the VC ecosystem
How to land in Venture Capital #1
Welcome to the first edition of How to land in Venture Capital: a weekly newsletter on the new ventures’ ecosystem. Every week, you will see a summary of every deal that has happened in the Iberian market and either an analysis of a startup or a piece of research in the VC ecosystem aimed to help young professional to land an internship in Venture Capital.
My name is Conrad and I work as a Startup Analyst. I help founders and investors achieve their goals by connecting both parties to financing opportunities. Additionally, I love to provide mentorship to guide startups on how to secure funding.
If you want to chat, drop me an email at conrad.carbonell@iese.net
Understanding the VC ecosystem
The venture capital (VC) ecosystem is a network of investors (1) who invest, and sometimes give support, to entrepreneurs who have founded their own startup (2) aiming for the growth of new and innovative businesses.
The investor side (1) primarily consists of incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capital firms, corporate venture arms, and private equity. These entities provide capital, mentorship, and resources to startups with high growth potential in exchange for equity. Each fund follows a specific strategy based on:
Industry (generalist/agnostic or specific, like pharma, i.e.)
Size (quantity of AUM, or assets under management; usually in millions of euros)
Stage (focused on early-stage or pre-seed, seed, series A, etc.)
Others (such as VCs focused on B2B SaaS, software B2C, etc.)
Nauta Capital is a VC firm focused on B2B software with €550m AUM.
They have invested in 85+ series A companies with an average ticket size of €1-5m.
The team consists of 3 General Partners (GPs), 1 Partner, 2 Managers, 1 Principal
and 5 Associates, with 5 more people helping with the administrative stuff.
Success within this ecosystem requires not only financial investment but also strategic guidance to help startups scale and navigate the challenges of rapid growth.
Kibo Ventures is a VC firm focused on tech with €300m AUM.
They have invested in 60+ pre-series A and series A companies.
The team consists of 3 GPs, 3 Partners, 4 Managers, 1 Principal
and 3 Directors with 7 more people helping with administrative and finance.
Understanding the dynamics of this ecosystem, including how deals are structured, how investments are sourced and evaluated, and the importance of networking and relationships, is crucial for anyone looking to enter the venture capital field.
JME Ventures is a sector-agnostic, seed-stage venture capital
fund investing in tickets between €100k to €3m.
With €120m AUM, they have invested in 65+ companies.
To determine if Venture Capital is the right career path for you, try these activities in order to understand the work itself and visualize yourself in or not:
1. Reading
Delve into books and blogs written by venture capitalists to understand their perspectives and experiences. Titles like "Venture Deals" by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson offer foundational knowledge.
Subscribing to newsletters or blogs, here are some of my favorites:
Product Market Fit by Guillermo Flor
Signature Block, great expert insights into the ecosystem
The blog of OpenVC
2. Connecting with other investors or VCs
Connect with current VC professionals through networking events, bootcamps, LinkedIn, or alumni networks. Informational interviews can provide valuable insights into the day-to-day realities of the job. Here are some examples:
The baby vc bootcamp
Contacting directly through a list of investors (106 VCs)
Co-working spaces and events
LinkedIn
3. Participating: going to startup/investor events
Consider joining or observing startup events, pitch competitions, or accelerator programs to get a sense of the ecosystem; at the end, this will be part of your job.
As Max Dütting said in the doc “How to land an internship in VC”, a venture capital investor deals primarily with events and people.
Some events for potential investors or entrepreneurs:
Google for Startups - Events
Allevents - Startup Events
4YFN - next in February 2025
4. Working
This is the most powerful activity, not only in Venture Capital, but in any kind of job. In order to understand the work itself and visualize yourself in or not, work as if you were working in a VC.