The story of entrepreneurs Pere Codina and Albert Colmenero is a clear example of the strength of the local digital ecosystem: the role of public, financial, trade fair and academic institutions.
Born in 1982 in Barcelona, Codina and Colmenero met in the classrooms of the UPC's Faculty of Computer Engineering. They immediately forged a strong friendship that would lead them to undertake together after leaving university. “In 2006, we founded Coco to develop a website creation tool, until eight years later we went out of business to found Kompyte.” Together with Sergio Ramírez (who had been his intern), they founded this new company with the purpose of developing software that would allow their clients to control the activity of their competitors on the Internet. “A former Coco client asked us for it and we saw that the solution fit the market”.
The start-up received financial support from Caixa Capital Risk and other investment funds such as Adara or Swanlab Ventures. But above all, it benefited from the support of Acció, the Generalitat's agency for company competitiveness, which gave it international projection and the possibility of attending the Mobile World Congress. “Attending the mobile world congress gave us the opportunity to sell our technology to large companies in the United States, such as Apple, Intel or HP, who ended up being our biggest clients. We offered a product that was innovative at the time”.
The strong presence in the United States – 90% of its income comes from this country – also played in its favor when it came to selling the company. “It was a decision we made because of the pandemic. Like everyone else, we suffered the crisis, and the funds demanded a return on their investment. We had received several offers and finally we were convinced by Semrush, a technology company born in Russia and now listed on the Nasdaq, the largest technology index in the US. The operation was closed last March for a price of 10 million dollars, about 9.5 million euros at the current exchange rate”.
Since then, Kompyte's 15-person team has been integrated into the multinational. The founders have settled in Austin, Texas, a city that is positioning itself for its adjusted costs compared to Silicon Valley, although both founders explain that they have been installed in the United States for some time. “When we started, we presented the business idea to the prestigious 500 start-ups program and it was there that we saw the need to move to the US from the beginning. Otherwise, another company would come and eat up our business. We established the headquarters in Delaware and opened offices in San Francisco and Barcelona”.
Semrush will now keep both centers operational. In fact, the multinational has plans to double the size of the team in a year. The founders are excited about the new stage. "We want to build a unicorn within a decacorn, for Kompyte to be a company worth 1 billion within a multinational like Semrush worth 10 billion." The entrepreneurs have signed a permanence agreement for more than four years and are linked to the project in the long term.
In the United States they are comfortable. Now that they are employed, they hope to have more free time. Colmenero is a fan of mountain biking, and Codina, archery. Also, whenever he can, he escapes to the Costa Brava or, now, to the Caribbean beaches.
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