Press release

22/05/2020

AQUILINO PEÑA, PRESIDENT
Aquilino Peña, founding parnet of Kibo Ventures, has been appointed as president of the Spanish Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (ASCRI) for the 2020-2022 period. Aquilino will replace Miguel Zurita, Managing Partner & Co-CIO at Altamar Capital.
Kibo Ventures is a venture capital firm with €115M in AUM and which has invested in more than 50 high-growth companies such as Flywire, Carto, Job&Talent, Devo, Defined Crowd or Paack, among others. Kibo Ventures is a firm with an international profile, with portfolio companies based in Spain, USA, UK, Canada, Portugal and Germany, and which has co-invested together with more than 35 high-level international funds.

Aquilino has been linked to the interactive sector since 1995 and from multiple angles: entrepreneur, operator and investor. As an entrepreneur, Aquilino was co-founder of Submarino.com, a Pioneer company in the e-commerce sector in Spain and Latin America, which completed an IPO in Brasil in 2004.

As an operator, he has managed more than 50 portales, including Orange.es, wanadoo.es, Starmedia.com, el Rincón del vago, Autocity, Telecinco.com and the portals of the Hachette group. Orange’s network of portals became the 2nd largest audience in Spanish with 40M users per month and 10th worldwide.
As an investor, Aquilino has been an angel investor in more than 15 companies such as Volotea, Acierto, Bodeboca or the ISDI business school, among others.

Additionally, he is a member of the Executive Committee of @adigital. Furthermore, he has been Chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), member of the Board of the Spanish Association of Electronic Commerce, member of the Council of the Spanish Association of Advertisers (AEA) and Executive Director of the European Internet Advertising Association (EIAA), among other relevant forums.

In his professional life prior to Kibo Ventures, he was CEO of Mediaedge:cia (the largest WPP media agency in Spain) for Spain and Portugal. Previously, he was General Manager of the interactive business of Orange, Marketing and Customer Service Director of eresMas / Wanadoo, founder and CEO of submarino.com in Spain and consultant for The Boston Consulting Group in Madrid and Sao Paulo.

Aquilino holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a degree in Law and Economics from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas – ICADE

ORIOL PINYA, VICEPRESIDENT
Oriol is CEO and co-founder of Abac Capital. Previously, he worked at Apax Partners for 15 years as an Equity Partner, responsible for Apax Spain and co-responsible for the Consumer team worldwide. He has also worked at Merrill Lynch and Boston Consulting Group. He is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, treasurer of the ESADE Alumni Association, a member of the board of the HBS Club of Barcelona and a member of the Board of Friends of the Pere Tarrés Foundation. Oriol holds a degree in Business Administration from ESADE (Barcelona), a CEMS Master from HEC (Paris), a PIM from Michigan Business School and an MBA from Harvard Business School (Boston), where he was a Fulbright Scholar.

ALBERTO GÓMEZ, VICEPRESIDENT
Alberto is co-founder and managing partner of Adara Ventures, a Venture Capital firm that manages more than 180 million euros and is dedicated to investments in new digital business technology companies. Adara focuses on companies that address global B2B market opportunities with unique product offerings. Geographically, the firm covers Western Europe, with a focus on Spain. The company is most active in sectors such as applied AI/AM, cyber security, cloud services/infrastructure, data-intensive vertical solutions and general business software.
Investments include AlienVault (acquired by AT&T), Playgiga (acquired by Facebook), ADD Semiconductor (acquired by Microchip), Stratio and 4iQ.
Prior to Adara, Alberto worked as an investment banker (Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch) and strategy consultant (McKinsey, Booz Allen). Alberto has a degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering from M.I.T. and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a native of Venezuela and has lived in the U.S. (Boston and New York) for over 20 years before moving to Spain.

NEW MEMBERS – BOARD OF DIRECTORS
ASCRI has appointed four new members to its Board of Directors for the 2020-2022 period: Oriol Pinya (Founding Partner and CEO of Abac Capital), Almudena Trigo (General Partner of BeAble Capital), Pedro Lopez (Principal of Permira) and Jose Luis del Rio (Managing Partner / CEO of Arcano) to replace Altamar Capital, Miura Private Equity, Seaya Ventures and KKR, who were appointed for the 2018-2020 period.

The Private Capital sector represented by the Spanish Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (ASCRI) is mainly oriented towards medium and long-term investment in unlisted companies, mostly SMEs, with growth potential through temporary equity holdings. Therefore, the role of Private Capital is very important in the financing, consolidation and strengthening of businesses as it provides stable financing to companies that are in various stages of development and lack access to other markets. From “seed capital” in early stages to the financing of large-scale business expansion, including growth and development capital, Private Capital is articulated as a necessary tool for the development of businesses, facilitating the creation and growth of companies and taking into account the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects throughout the process.
sociales y de gobierno (ESG).

In this sense, the role of Private Capital in the context of the current crisis, whose impact will affect start-ups and small and medium enterprises, seems to be of vital importance to mitigate its effects and therefore the deterioration of the Spanish economy. Private Capital has become a relevant part of the Spanish economy and therefore it is part of the solution in this new environment generated by the C19 crisis. Currently, the sector has more than 35,000 million euros under management, from national and international savers and is present in more than 2,600 companies (of which more than 90% are SMEs) that employ almost half a million people. In 2019, the Private Capital sector channelled more than 8,500 million euros of direct investment into Spanish companies, the vast majority of which came from foreign investors. In recent years, international investors have players a pivotal role in the development of the Spanish Private Capital sector and therefore in the financing of Spanish companies. For all these reasons, we are concerned that certain measures, and specifically those related to the suspension of the regime of liberalization of certain foreign investments, could limit the capacity of the Private Capital sector in its contribution to facing this crisis, since the continuity of these investments will be key to the reconstruction of our economy.

The Spanish Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (ASCRI), Spain’s private capital trade body, has the mission to develop and encourage equity investment in unlisted companies. The Association, chaired by Aquilino Peña, currently has more than 240 members.