InnoCells, Banco Sabadell's digital business hub, has invested 10 million dollars in the Base10 fund, specialized in technological investments, which has startups such as Ethos Lending, Reflektive, and Wonolo in its investment portfolio. In this way, InnoCells enters Silicon Valley.
Base10, founded in 2017 in San Francisco as Urizen Ventures, has a target size of 200 million dollars (180 million euros). The fund supports entrepreneurs determined to radically transform key economic sectors and solve major challenges through automation using intelligent software.
The US fund is led by two renowned investors: the Spaniard Adeyemi Ajao, co-founder of Tuenti and Cabify, and the American Thomas Nahigian, co-founder of Jobr and investor at Accel Partners.
In Spain, the fund is managed by the Spanish alternative assets firm Arcano Capital. Banco Sabadell will participate in Base10's Corporate Program, led by the fund's operating partner Pablo Massana, which combines financial investments with strategic consulting work, involving a select number of large leading companies in their sector.
This new investment reaffirms Banco Sabadell's commitment to innovation and digital transformation. It also represents the group's entry into Silicon Valley, a global benchmark in innovation and entrepreneurship. This will facilitate contact with cutting-edge innovations in artificial intelligence that will help accelerate the entity's transformation.
Adeyemi Ajao, founder of Base10, emphasizes: "We are delighted to be able to work closely with InnoCells and Banco Sabadell. In just 2 months we are already developing business opportunities and synergies between the bank and the companies in the portfolio."
Julio Martínez, executive director of InnoCells, highlights: "It is a privilege to collaborate hand in hand with Base10 and bring startups that, from Silicon Valley, lead ambitious sectoral transformations into our daily lives at InnoCells." He adds: "We share this investment thesis with Base10: machine learning is the technology with the most disruptive capacity in fintech."
José Luis del Río, CEO of Arcano Capital, highlights: "What attracts us most about the project is the possibility of acting as a bridge between startups and the European companies investing in the fund. It is a very interesting growth channel for startups and the strategic benefit for our investors is enormous."
INNOCELLS, STRATEGIC INVESTMENT VEHICLE InnoCells carries out strategic digital and technological investments that bring new technological capabilities, talent, and knowledge closer to Banco Sabadell. In particular, InnoCells executes both direct minority investments and acquisitions in order to bring new digital business models, as well as core capabilities, in a reduced time-to-market.
In 2017, InnoCells co-led a £1.5 million (about €1.6 million) seed capital investment in the British platform Bud. In February, the hub led a one-million-euro seed capital investment round in the vocal biometrics startup Biometric Vox.
In June, InnoCells acquired Instant Credit, a Spanish startup that offers instant financing at the physical and digital point of sale (e-commerce). In July, it invested 7.5 million euros in the venture capital fund Cardumen Capital. In September, the hub entered with an investment of 5 million euros in the capital of Antai Venture Builder and in October it acquired the online PAYTPV payment platform.
ABOUT BANCO SABADELL, STARTUPS AND INNOVATION Banco Sabadell has deployed a global strategy to support startups and innovation in recent years. The entity has more than 2,700 client startups and, in the last five years, has granted more than 175 million euros in investment and financing and has already invested in 65 startups. In 2013, BStartup and the BStartup10 investment vehicle were created for the initial phases of projects. In 2015, Sabadell Venture Capital was established for capital investments and venture debt of up to two million euros in seed and series A phases. And, in 2017, InnoCells was created, Banco Sabadell's digital business hub and corporate venture arm.