We talked to Patricia Pastor (València, 1977) while she was preparing the celebration of Investor's Day, an event that this Monday brought together more than 150 investors from all over the world in Valencia. The "most important" day for the Global Omnium corporate investment fund, explains the general director, in which "a terrible effort has been made by the team so that everyone comes to Valencia".
We spoke with Pastor about the strength of the city as an entrepreneurial hub, business opportunities and also its weaknesses, who was also an entrepreneur and knows what it means to fall into a sector in which "everyone wants to get it right the first time" .
What does 'Investor Day' mean for GoHub?
It is the most important day, because in the end it is where we can finally gather all the people in person. When we started it up it sounded great, but not everyone came, and now they tell us that they really want to get to know the city, some wanted to repeat it because they had already been and others because it was already playing throughout the ecosystem. Before, we were the ones pulling the cart to promote València and we have already managed to position it to be the one pulling the cart.
And where is the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Valencia going?
It has changed a lot in the last five or six years and it has to do with several factors. The ecosystem has grown, there are many of us who are going abroad and the most interesting thing is that here we have all grown very close together. The message has been very common and we have always put on the hat of ambassadors, wherever we go we always sell our ecosystem. I also think that there is obviously a before and after of the Valencian Association of Startups because there we all started working together. It's funny because we all knew each other before. Now it is beginning to be difficult to have everything mapped: suddenly someone tells you that a Dutch company with more than 100 workers has set up here and we did not know it.
Really in these events the interesting thing happens behind. Behind the scenes.
It continues to be an exhibition of our best investments to raise funds that, if you calculate them in their entirety, have many billions, and in the end it is “show me the money”: it is about showing them what we do, explaining them and telling them 'co-invest with me and help me make it grow'. Startups are in their business and we as investors have to be very fellow travelers and choose and introduce them to those who we want to be our future partners.
How has digitization changed after the pandemic?
It has served to make a few realize that it really is a transversal sector that is everywhere and that it is the one that is going to help transform the socioeconomic model of a country, an industry or an economy. We have noticed it a lot in our companies, but now we have to know how to maintain it, hard times are coming with a very changing market and precisely those that have known how to grow, maintain themselves and be sustainable by making efficient use of capital are the ones that really continue to bet on being the market leaders. Now is when the waves will arrive and you have to surf.
-What does an investor like GoHub Ventures offer to startups and what does it get?
In the committee we bring together people who have worked a lot in the ecosystem and then there is the investment committee led by Jaime Barba's team. When someone comes and tells us the type of technology they have, a fund normally has to rely on external consultants to be able to assess it, but we do have them and very good ones too. But you have to trust the driver, no matter what idea you have, 98% is the team. There also has to be ambition, perseverance and a spark of madness, freshness and, above all, being very attentive to the environment and knowing how to pivot on time because when you start something, it doesn't always end the same way. It is what differentiates a startup from a traditional company and that is the greatness of startups.
-Where do investors look now? A few days ago GoHub announced its biggest investment to date: Vozy, a conversational AI platform to improve customer service.
Yes. We met them on a trip and the first thing is that they are a specialized team, very well complemented. They played an audio in which a woman was talking to a client about claiming payments and we were amazed, because she was a robot. They have created a good product and much more improved than any call center, in which the robot identifies emotions instantly through artificial intelligence. And we saw that a leader in the Hispanic market was missing because there is a huge market in the United States and we thought of helping them land here as well. If they had to do it alone, it would take a long time and in the end this is about growing fast, validating, making mistakes quickly and getting it right as soon as possible.
Do you notice among entrepreneurs a concern related to climate change?
There is a concern in technology to solve these problems, yes, and now wherever you go, it is the star and strategic issue. That's why we created The Global Water Challenge. When we came out we had the label that we invested in water, but this is not the case, we invest in deep tech, fintech, and in many other sectors. Water is a business model that is run by public administrations anywhere in the world and growing is very complicated, the market in the end seems very large but it is not. An ecosystem of predictions is now being created to monitor natural behaviors and natural phenomena, and there is a great effort to make living in cities and towns more efficient in a sustainable way.
-Cities. She worked in the area of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology of the Valencia City Council, in the incipient VIT Emprende. What balance does years later?
Well, little remains of what was done, but in the end the private sector capitalized on it, and it's not bad either. The public sector should focus a lot, more on what is needed, which is to generate entrepreneurs. At that time there was some aid of 16,000 euros that helped a lot to generate an ecosystem and to create the first projects that grew on standard technological entrepreneurship. Today there are many startups of those that survive and tell you that this help was what prompted them to make the decision to move forward. It should be recovered because it is true that investment funds invest, but in slightly more advanced states. And something that helped a lot was the missions, which we have now recovered with Startup Valencia.
The work of the Startup Valencia, which is celebrating these days the Valencia Digital Summit, always stands out.
Yes, and about this event there is a pending account. I miss, and I say it sincerely, not only in the public but also that the private sector supports this event, because in the end in Madrid there are all the Madrid corporations supporting their events and here we miss a little that big businessmen relevance are implied. If they are going digital, if they are jumping on this bandwagon, support it. And in the Administration no one has supported this event as the benchmark. And it doesn't matter if they insist on other proposals, the Valencia event will be the Digital Summit because in the end it is the one that supports the sector. Either you join or you join.
Events from abroad have also come to Valencia, such as the South Summit, for example.
And we support him because he is doing extremely well and look how well they have done with the tax exemption they have taken from the Sánchez government. María (Benjumea) has opened the door to all of us; She has been working for a long time and working hard for the South Summit, but now we are all going to fight it, there is no doubt about that, and above all we who are already fighting it from Digital.
-Is the Startup Law what the sector needs?
Yes, obviously, and it is a giant step for there to be a law because they already recognize that it is something super positive and it is also for investors, because it makes no sense that you are supporting companies that will improve the socioeconomic future of your country and that penalized for it. The investor who invests in startups has a huge risk and is investing in talent. And then it was necessary to put in the place that corresponds to this type of companies. It's a start, now we have to keep working because from what there is to what has to be there is between done.
-In the last debate in La Vanguardia you insisted on the bureaucratic obstacles for the ecosystem.
The problem is the types of profiles, because here they are very specific. To bring someone from Latin America, you have to publish it in the SEPE and if in two months no one has shown up, you can start the process, but of course, tell someone that you think they are a crack, that it has cost you to convince them to come here , that you have to wait two months. It is incredible that two people who want to work together cannot, but in the end, because of how the whole bureaucratic plot is made, it is not possible. And it's only an example.
And that makes you lose opportunities.
Sure, huge opportunities. That creates that a lot of talent that wants to come to Valencia does not come. And we are in a war for talent in which the market is completely inflated.
Has Valencia reached its ceiling?
What's up, he still has a lot to grow! This is a very good opportunity because Barcelona is in low hours -and I feel bad saying it-, and there are many people who are opening in Valencia and that must be capitalized on to the fullest and take over as much as possible. Being super well connected with Madrid is an advantage, but we need the corridor. Because if communications don't improve, I can't plan meetings... The key is for Valencian companies to scale towards Latin America and the United States, because Europe is in low hours. We are creating very interesting bridges across Miami and it will be key for companies to grow faster. These days we have seen the sale of Kantox, or the case of Factorial, which is a unicorn, and what we need is to have cases like these in Valencia, that is why we focus there. It's the moment.
