VIKO startups

We do not settle and we love the startup ecosystem.

Being close to the startup ecosystem is key for us to learn about new digital business models and to keep us always innovating. As operators, founders, and investors, we've been fortunate to be a part of some of the most outstanding startups in Spain over the last 15 years. We are honored to be the marketing operators of meaningful startups such as Privalia, Groupalia, La Nevera Roja, Aba English, Ulabox, Camaloon, Housfy, Gymforless, Hannun, Colvin, Platanomelon, CityBox....

We are proud investors, we had the opportunity to invest directly in remarkable startups such as Arengu, Ulabox, La Tostadora, Guruwalk, Ritmo, Boxmotions, etc, or through key players in the industry such as Lanai Partners, Encomenda, and Demium in more than 100 startups.
‍
We are hands-on founders too. When we identify an opportunity, we launch it directly, ie, YABA or with our corporate venture builder division, Elogia Corporate Lab, i.e. Okify, Coventia, and Equipzila.

As of today, we have been lucky to have sold three companies Q&A Shops, EMMA Mobile Solutions, and Blueknow. On the other hand, we had the opportunity to learn from our failures, closures such as Unilocus, Compring, Boatius, and Offemily.

In our current venture portfolio some of our more prominent ventures are:

ULABOX

In 2010, Jaume Gomá, David Baratech, and Sergi de Pablos launched ULABOX, a grocery digital store.  When we meet them we believed in their vision, the consumer goods category had to change faster than what was happening. It was growing slowly until COVID19 when the category exploded due to the confinement. In 2020 ULABOX is pivoting to be a fast-delivery, on-demand marketplace for online groceries. In 2010, we invested 250K euros, 50% in cash, and 50% in services, and it was our first services for equity deal.

> Visit website

ARENGU

In 2018, Jacobo Vidal, former Elogia’s employee, with Sergio Regueira and Pablo Castro founded Rocketforms. We merged our product, Mooseway with Rocketforms, and after we invested additional resources Arengu was born. Arengu then issued its first fundraising round with Kfund. Arengu is a SaaS App that optimizes sign-up flows. With Arengu you can easily build forms and flows, sign-up and authenticate users, automate onboarding tasks, and integrate APIs without coding.

> Visit website

LA TOSTADORA

In 2019 Josep Mitja, former COO and co-founder of Wuaki.tv, Ferran Guell Formerly CMO at Privalia and Maria Colomar, former Operations Director at Wuaki.tv acquired “La Tostadora” the market leader of print-on-demand t-shirts in Spain with more than 150K customers. This seasoned team backed by several investors as VIKO GROUP is managing “La Tostadora” to expand to the rest of the world and transform itself into the biggest digital player of Personalized Fashion Apparel.

> Visit website

LANAI PARTNERS

Our CEO, Rubén Ferreiro, Jeroen Merchiers, former EMEA Managing Director of Airbnb, and Guillermo Llibre, CEO of Housell,  along with other seasoned entrepreneurs launched Lanai Partners in 2017. The current version of Lanai Partners is backed by VIKO GROUP, and in this way, we have an indirect stake in the following startups: Reby, Openwebinars, Consentio, Picker, Cobee, Flanks, Miss Tipsi, Assembler, Trioteca, Opositatest, Baluwo, Atani, Acqustic, Modal, Kriim, Pigari, Tropicfeel, Frankie The King, Melbot, Payflow, and Celebrents. 

> Visit website

YABA

In 2020, FBA Aggregators became the hottest trend in the tech ecosystem and therefore we launched, YABA. A House of Brands digital-first, based on a buy-and-build strategy with Amazon sellers operating mainly under the FBA model, Fulfillment By Amazon. After identifying winning products, we acquire them, standardize and professionalize all the processes and apply economies of scale/synergies to build category leaders. 

> Visit website

RITMO

In 2021 we had the opportunity to invest in Ritmo, the new trend to finance the growth of digital businesses. This venture is based on revenue-based financing or revenue-share investing, which is the natural next step for the private equity and early-stage venture investment industry. Ritmo connects, in real-time, to the data of these digital businesses and makes daily underwriting decisions based on marketing campaigns’ performance

> Visit website

We are also startup founders. In Elogia Corporate labs, we create ventures with our clients, and currently, we are proud founding partners in the following ventures:

The new fair, affordable, and digital-first life insurance. It is led by David Fenández, a seasoned manager in the insurance industry and a former executive at ECI, BBVA, Deloitte, DAS, and Banco Pastor, and partnering with Fidelidade, the leading insurance company in Portugal, and Swiss Re, one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance. We are supporting Coventia, as the key marketing and product partner.

With our client DAS Insurance (MunichRE Group), we validated a market opportunity in the PropTech category, creating a SaaS-enabled marketplace to provide default payment insurance for landlords. Currently, Xavier Ardanuy and Miquel Sanzol are the executive co-founders, DAS and VIKO, as initial founders, have invested additional resources. In essence, Okify is a seamless and trustful tool to manage the relationship between landlords, tenants, and agencies

> Discover more

A marketplace for heavy equipment and machinery. Partnering with GAM, the leader in Spanish machinery solutions. We identified a real problem which is to match effectively the supply and the demand in the heavy equipment industry, and so we created Equipzilla, the quickest and most affordable way to rent heavy equipment and machinery.

> Discover more

In addition, we have a stake in other startups as Guruwalk, Singerfy, Opseeker, and Boxmotions. We also have invested in professionally-managed funds and venture builders such as Encomenda and Demium.

Let's make something great
> Join the team!