Fermin Bueno
Partner at Rainmaking
Fermin Bueno
Partner at Rainmaking
Seville, Andalusia
Overview
Work Experience
Co-founder & Managing Partner
2012 - Current
Finnovista is the leading ecosystem-driven corporate innovation and venture capital firm committed to the development of the Fintech ecosystem and the transformation of finance for the better in Latin America. Finnovista builds partnerships with the most visionary startups, investors and companies to solve big challenges in financial services by unleashing the transformative power of entrepreneurship and collaboration. The company provides its corporate clients with disruptive innovation services to develop key organizational skills, explore partnerships and generate tangible results in collaboration with the ecosystem.
Co-founder & Managing Partner
2016
Finnovista.vc is a venture capital firm that leads rounds in pre-seed and seed stage Fintech companies in spanish-speaking Latin America. Finnovista.vc is the venture capital arm of Finnovista, an organization that has played a pivotal role in developing and orchestrating the Fintech ecosystem in Latin America since 2013. Finnovista.vc is the first VC partner for Fintech entrepreneurs. We combine earliest-stage capital and Fintech ecosystem know-how and know-who to create the Fintech leaders in Latin America. Fund I (vintage 2017) successfully invested in 42 pre-seed and seed Fintech startups, having helped create the Fintech 1.0 leaders of Spanish-speaking LATAM. Our investments include Fintech leaders such as Flink (exited 100x), Dapp (exited 61x), Atrato, Prometeo, Vexi, BDEO, Finerio Connect, Facturedo, Tu Identidad, Prestanómico, Contalink and Koibanx, among others. As of 2024, Fund I has returned 6.5x multiple to its investors (MoiC) and 230% return in Distributed Paid-In capital (DPI).
Partner
2020
Rainmaking is a corporate innovation and venture development firm. We help the world’s most influential companies build and scale new businesses. We work with organizations of all shapes and sizes, from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 corporates, to solve challenges across the ever-changing landscape of innovation.
Co-Founder
2014
FINNOSUMMIT is the leading high-impact networking, content and events platform in Latin America for the transformation of finance for the better. Since 2014, FINNOSUMMIT organizes the largest Fintech conference in Latin America, where entrepreneurs, financial institution executives, investors and the most influential players in the Fintech ecosystem gather to seek, generate and implement new opportunities for the transformation of the financial services industry. FINNOSUMMIT is a Finnovista group company, committed to the development of the Fintech ecosystem and drives Fintech knowledge in the region through the development of studies and periodical publications on the state and latest trends in Fintech innovations. The FINNOSUMMIT community is composed of more than 40,000 financial services innovators, who on a daily basis look for Fintech trends, news, data, insights and reports to understand the future of Fintech and financial services.
LATAM Co-founder & Managing Partner
2016 - 2024
Launched Startupbootcamp in LATAM, creating the largest Fintech pre-seed and seed platform in the region with two world-class Startupbootcamp programs and supporting 45 companies that later became Fintech leaders in the region. Startupbootcamp FinTech is an intensive acceleration program helping Fintech startups build a scalable business model with over 400 leading mentors, partners and investors from the financial technology ecosystem. Startupbootcamp Scale Fintech is the leading Fintech growth program in Latin America, helping startups with a validated business model, on the verge of raising their Series A round, to overcome the scaling barriers inherent to these type of companies in the region. Startupbootcamp is the world's largest industry-focused startup accelerator network. We have accelerated (and invested) in 1600+ startups which in turn have created over 7000+ jobs, raised over €1.9B in funding and 76% are still active to date.
Lecturer
2020 - 2021
Lecturer on Open Innovation and Fintech Venturing for Financial Institutions at the Digital Banking and Financial Service Innovation Executive Program at IE Business School. More info: https://www.ie.edu/es/exponential-learning/programas/programa-direccion-banca-digital-e-innovacion-en-el-sector-financiero/claustro/#menu-programa
Lecturer
2013 - 2017
Lecturer on Fintech Entrepreneurship at the Executive Programme in Financial Innovation and Technology at IEB. The EP-FIT is the first executive program in Europe that explains how Innovation and Technology are transforming banking and the financial sector Involved at various studies and research papers about Fintech and Digital Transformation of the Financial Service sector at IEB.
Founder and Managing Partner
2011 - 2012
I founded and lead inVenture, an impact accelerator specialized in attracting high-tech global startups to Spain.
Investment Manager
2009 - 2011
As founding employee, I helped launch the Jeremie Fund, a 250M USD impact investment fund financed by the European Investment Fund (European Union) and the Andalusia Regional Government. As Investment Manager, I reported to the Fund Managing Director and led the investments of the fund in tech-startups. - Led investments through the entire spectrum of venture investment process from initial screening to execution and monitoring. Hands-on approach on product, commercial and market due diligence. Identified emerging market trends and talent. Active participation at board level on portfolio companies: shaping company & product strategy, strategic alliances, etc. - Performed 10 investments in technology companies, 8 early- and 2 mid-stage, on ICT sub-sectors: mobile, semiconductor, fintech, artificial intelligence, social internet and software security. - Invested in Ebury Technologies (Fintech) the tech-platform of Ebury Partners that was later integrated into Ebury Partners (majority owned by Banco Santander and valued at USD 800M), AnaFocus (Semiconductors) later acquired for 35M euros by E2V Technologies, iActive (AI) named Cool Vendor by Gartner and leading to 4 spin-offs with successful acquisitions and Global Incubator (Collaborative innovation software) that is helping global corporates and other ecosystem players in their ecosystem-driven innovation initiatives.
Management Consultant
2005 - 2009
As a consultant, I helped design and launch technology products and services and define and optimize corporate strategies and organizations within TMT global corporations. Projects developed at VP, CxO and board level. Sample customers and projects include: - Incumbent Mobile Network Operator, Belgium. Led project teams in the areas of product marketing and handsets: 1) Reviewed and re-defined partnership/wholesale strategy and strategic priorities for MVNO and partnership operations to regain market share from competitors. 2) Re-launched mobile services for media partners MTV and RTL to improve overall subscription performance. 3) Developed handset marketing plan and reviewed handset product strategy to gain a stronger customer focus. Best-practices in the handset operations management, score-card design for KPI optimizations. - Challenger Mobile Network Operator, Germany. Led projects in the areas of corporate strategy, product marketing and branding: 1) Reviewed and re-defined handset portfolio strategy for regular (OEM) and branded (ODM) handsets. Defined marketing plan and consumer roadmap for branded handsets. 2) Designed organizational re-structuring and processes re-design within handset, marketing and brand departments. - Startup of Global Mobile Network Operator, Spain. Developed operator entry strategy (as MVNE) and partner brands business plan for the start-up of Global MNO in Spain. Performed business development activities to recruit brand reselling partners, including alternative telecom operators, tier-1 media and retailing partners. - Challenger Broadband Operator and Leading Innovative Bank, Spain. Designed mobile service entry offer & strategy (as MVNO) and business cases; developed marketing plan and operations launch plan. - New Mobile Network Operator, Spain Market due diligence and company valuation for the merger and acquisition of sister company.
Education
International MBA
2001 - 2002
M.Sc. Microelectronics & Communication
1994 - 1995
International Master in Photography
2008 - 2009
Ingeniero Superior Industrial
1989 - 1994