Samaipata's 2024 in Review: €20M deployed, Graduations and Momentum

2024 was a year of growth and resilience. Despite a challenging environment for venture-backed startups, we witnessed resilience, innovation, and incredible achievements from our founders, team, and community. From major funding rounds to new investments, team promotions, and the launch of our new substack publication, Samaipata continued to build momentum across all fronts. 

Here’s a look at the highlights that made 2024 a year to remember: 

New Investments and Portfolio Growth

This year, eight of our Fund II portfolio companies graduated from Seed to Series A, raising a total of €70m in fresh capital - a remarkable achievement in a tough funding landscape. Some standout rounds:

• Nory raised €15 million in a Series A round led by Accel (Facebook, Slack, Dropbox), paving the way for expansion into the US market. 
• Embat secured a €15 million Series A investment led by Creandum (Spotify, Klarna) to fuel its ambitious expansion plans. 
• Retraced raised €15 million in a Series A round led by Partech (Trade Republic, Qonto), marking a significant step in its expansion. 

Two additional Series A rounds will be announced soon.

We also celebrated four new investments: 

• We led a €3m Seed round in Imperia (Spain), a smart supply chain and procurement platform targeted at SMBs.
• We led a €6m Series A round in Dcycle (Spain), a SaaS solution that helps companies manage their sustainability data.
• We co-led a €4m Seed round in Synthavo (Germany) alongside Senovo. Synthavo leverages AI to optimize spare parts management.
• Additionally, we closed another round in Spain that will be announced soon - stay tuned for more details! 

In total, Samaipata deployed €20 million this year, across first-ticket and follow-on rounds, screening 5,000 companies, meeting 600 founding teams, and hosting 25 investment committees along the way.

The Team Behind the Deals

We are in a people business and this year we invested in ours. The investment team celebrated the promotions of Stephanie Chan and Iñigo Laucirica to Principal, and welcomed Irene Gentili and Carmen Sánchez as our new Investment Manager and Investment Associate respectively.

Additionally, we brought on five new partners to The Hive, our founder success platform:

• Laura Ryan, Chief People Officer at SoSafe with over two decades of HR leadership experience. Laura specializes in fostering people-first cultures and driving innovative HR cultures. Previously, she led global HR initiatives at Dropbox and Google, shaping talent strategies across EMEA. 
• Ligia Sabillón is a seasoned talent acquisition leader with a track record of scaling teams at companies like Glovo, King, and Docplanner. Ligia specializes in aligning recruitment strategies with business goals and fostering diverse, high performing teams.
• Maurice Whelan, a renowned Executive Coach with experience at companies such as Airbnb, PayPal and Stripe, joins as a Premium Partner for executive coaching and mental health wellbeing.
• Laurent Michelet, a strategic Finance Advisor with a background in SaaS businesses, also joins as a Premium Partner, having managed significant fundraising rounds totaling €150 million at Deezer and Matera.

We also hosted our second Hive Summit in Mallorca, an immersive retreat bringing together over 50 attendees. This retreat is designed to strengthen the bonds within our community, fostering meaningful connections and facilitating collaboration among all attendees.

A New Office in Madrid

This year, we opened the doors to our new office in Madrid! We plan to make our office a thrilling hub of investment and technology discussions, both closed and open doors. Stay tuned!

Samaipata Insights

2024 also marked the launch of Samaipata Insights, our new Substack publication where we share our perspectives on technology, startups and venture capital. Some of our latest essays include: 

• Accelerating the Spanish entrepreneurial system: from AI agents to the softwarization of labour, this piece explores the opportunities and challenges that software companies will face in this new era.
• AI is shaking up the software market, for the better: this essay explores how founder mafias, stock options and exits are set to accelerate the Spanish entrepreneurial flywheel. 

If you haven’t yet, subscribe here to Samaipata Insights! 

Thank you to our founders, investors, and partners for making this year extraordinary. 

We can’t wait to see what’s ahead in 2025!