The Venture Codex

Participated · Equity · Oct 2018

Colvin operates an online marketplace selling flowers and plants, and since founding has expanded through acquisitions to enter new markets. The company acquired French startup Monsieur Marguerite and Italian wholesaler Bloovery as part of its international expansion. Last year it shifted strategy to focus on B2C sales and now plans to concentrate on improving logistics, marketing and product offerings to drive sustainable growth. Founders Sergi Bastardas and Andrés Cester have announced they will step aside to enable a new CEO and board to prioritise profitability, while remaining as shareholders and advisors. Financially, Colvin has raised €83.7 million across eight financing rounds and recently completed an internal capital increase; the company sees the fresh capital as providing a stronger cash position. The firm believes it can lead its sector in Spain, Italy, France and Portugal under the new strategy. Colvin operates a platform for the floriculture industry, originally launched as a direct-to-consumer flower delivery brand and now expanded into a B2B marketplace for professionals. The company connects growers and wholesalers directly with retailers to avoid traditional intermediaries and the Netherlands auction system it says dominates the trade. Colvin says it leverages a scalable supply chain and a global network of trusted growers. Management and investors describe 2020 as an acceleration point for the business; Eurazeo noted Colvin has grown both fast and profitably while expanding into new geographies. The company is building out its B2B solution while maintaining its consumer business, with plans to lead a broader industry transformation. Co-founder Sergi Bastardas frames the effort as digitalizing the supply chain and bypassing unnecessary middlemen. Colvin operates an online flower delivery service that connects customers directly with growers, cutting traditional production-chain time and costs. The company also provides a customized customer care service. It is present in Spain, Italy, Portugal and Germany and has quadrupled its turnover compared with the previous year. Colvin intends to use the new funding to continue expanding operations and its business reach across Europe—notably Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany—and to grow its product offerings. To date the company has raised €24m in total funding, including the newly announced Series B. The business focuses on shortening the production chain between growers and consumers to reduce time and costs for customers. Colvin is an online flower sales platform founded in late 2016 by Sergi Bastardas, Andrés Cester and Marc Olmedillo. The company focuses on building a strong brand and disintermediating the floral supply chain through direct relationships with growers in the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. It operates in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany and the Netherlands while managing market-specific teams from Barcelona rather than opening local offices. Management says the business is growing rapidly, tripling sales each year, and currently employs about 65 people. Colvin aims for foreign revenues to represent 50% of total sales by the end of the year. Since launch the company has raised €11 million in total. Colvin operates a flower delivery service that sources flowers exclusively from European producers and delivers them within 24 hours of collection to maintain quality and control costs. The company serves customers in Spain, Italy and Portugal. Co-founded in 2016 by Sergi Bastardas, Andrés Cester and Marc Olmedillo, Colvin has built a logistics-focused offering around fast delivery. The business intends to use its new funding for international expansion, technology development and increased branding and marketing. Financially, Colvin raised €6M in this round, bringing total funding to €9M to date. The company is based in Barcelona and targets European markets through its supplier and delivery model.

Participated · Series C · May 2017

CornerJob is a mobile recruitment platform that connects employers and jobseekers for skilled and hourly roles across Italy, France, Spain and Mexico. Launched in October 2015 by David Rodriguez, Miguel Vicente, Gerard Olivé and Mauro Maltagliati, the company operates offices in Barcelona, Paris, Milan, Madrid and Mexico City. Its app has reached 8 million downloads and more than 200,000 companies use the platform to publish job ads. Clients span industries including HoReCa, tourism, retail, construction, public sector, SMEs and blue‑chip companies such as Adecco, Eataly, Geox, Amnesty International, Generali, Manpower and McDonald’s. CornerJob intends to use the new funding to expand its leadership in digital recruitment across its operating countries. To date the company has raised over $57m, including a $19m funding announced in May 2017. CornerJob operates a lightweight mobile app for location-based job advertising, shortlisting and chat aimed at low-skill, high-turnover recruitment. It is building employer-facing SaaS tools to speed hiring and monetize via successful hires, and is investing in machine learning and productivity features such as 'flash questions', reviews/ratings and transactional services developed with Randstad. The company says it focuses on improving candidate experience while adding transparency on candidate and company behavior. CornerJob is active in France, Italy, Spain and Mexico and is eyeing expansion into an unnamed European market and the US. It reports 700k shortlistings per month (growing at an average compound monthly rate of 30%), 150,000 registered companies, 74% repeat listers monthly, and job listers growing 10% month-over-month. The new funding will be used for product development, reinforcing strategic markets and geographic expansion. CornerJob operates an Android and iOS jobs marketplace app that lets users create a profile, search and apply for full-time, part-time and student jobs, and chat with companies to clarify their profile. The app is active in Spain, France, UK and Mexico. The company was co-founded by Miguel Vicente, Gerard Olivé, David Rodriguez and Mauro Maltagliati. CornerJob said it will use the new funding to continue expanding operations, including growth in Mexico. The raise includes a media-for-equity component aimed specifically at expansion in Mexico. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article. Cornerjob is a mobile application that helps non-executive workers find jobs across sectors such as hospitality, retail, industry, construction and sales. The app was created about a year earlier by Miguel Vicente, Gerard Olivé, Mauro Maltagliati and David Rodríguez within Antai Venture Builder. It leads in Italy and France and is expanding into Spain and Mexico. Cornerjob reports growth of roughly half a million downloads per month and about 20,000 new job offers appearing in the app. The company employed around 70 people and planned to invest the new funds in technology to become a one-stop recruiting solution for non-executive profiles and to strengthen its positions in core markets.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2014

ByHours is a Spanish internet company founded in March 2012 that provides online hotel bookings by the hour. The platform has aggregated over 300 hotels. Its core product enables users to reserve rooms in hourly increments rather than traditional overnight stays. Recently Velocity Ventures announced a strategic investment in the company. That investment is being used to support ByHours' expansion into emerging Asian markets. The article does not report any revenue, user counts, or detailed financial metrics. BYHOURS offers microstay hotel bookings in packs of three, six and 12 hours, allowing users to choose check-in and check-out times. The platform is available in more than 3,000 hotels worldwide and users can book in over 20 countries across 600 destinations. Founded in 2012 by Christian Rodríguez and Guillermo Gaspart, BYHOURS has over 250,000 users and has sold more than one million hotel hours. The company has generated over €20 million in turnover and international sales accounted for 52% of overall sales at the end of 2019. With new investment, BYHOURS plans to consolidate its presence in Europe, Latin America and Middle East flight-connection points, start operations in the United States, and develop the B2B market and connectivity with other tourism players. The company opened a Mexico office to centralise Latin America operations and expects to add over 2,000 hotels, increase turnover by over 150%, and earn 75% of revenue from international bookings. ByHours operates an online platform for booking hotel rooms by the hour, led by Christian Rodríguez and Guillermo Gaspart. The company runs in markets including Germany (office in Berlin) and Great Britain and allows reservations in cities such as Vienna, Rome, Brussels and Amsterdam. It has about 35 employees and reported €3.1 million of revenue in 2015, with a plan to reach €5 million in the referenced year. The freshly raised funds are intended to consolidate its presence across Europe, Latin America and southern Asia. ByHours has stated plans to expand into cities near international airports (examples cited include Doha and Dubai) and into Latin America, and it may seek additional capital to support openings in Asia or the United States. ByHours operates an online platform that enables customers to reserve hotel rooms by the hour. The service is active in Germany (with an office in Berlin), the UK and in cities such as Vienna, Rome, Brussels and Amsterdam. The company is headquartered in Barcelona and reported 25 employees at the time of the report. ByHours posted €3.1M revenue in 2015 and planned to reach €5M that year. Management changes noted Guillermo Gaspart Bueno assuming the chair while founder Christian Rodríguez remained CEO; investor representatives Roland Zeller (Redalpine), Sascha Hausmann (Howzat) and Ertan Can (HR Ventures) joined the board. The company planned a follow-on financing of €6–8M in early 2017 to support its internationalization efforts. ByHours is a Catalan startup offering a platform to reserve hotel rooms by the hour. The company is led and co‑founded by Christian Rodríguez Fornos and counts Guillermo Gaspar among its early participants. At the time of the report it had about 30 employees and roughly 30,000 recurring users of its application. The business is positioned as a reference project in the Spanish tech scene. Mediaset joined the company through an advertising‑for‑equity arrangement that will give ByHours prominent promotional presence on the broadcaster's TV channels.