Jelmer De Jong
Partner & CTO at RTP Global
Jelmer De Jong
Partner & CTO at RTP Global
London, England
Overview
Work Experience
Partner & CTO
2021 - Current
As a Partner at RTP Global, I'm building the Venture Capital Operating System. I lead our efforts to better use technology, data, AI, ML, LLMs, digital intelligence, and digital investigation in every aspect of the VC lifecycle. I'm expanding our (data) engineering team and created our in-house Data Intelligence Platform, The Beast, that uses quantitative and qualitative OSINT to show a complete picture of the past, current, and future state of a startup. On top of The Beast, we run our screening model Athena to select the best startups for our deal team to focus on. At the same time, The Beast acts like a company librarian, collecting, indexing, and helping the team find insights in the data we receive, like pitch decks and data we create ourselves, like memos and investment calls. With our custom-trained LLM, the Beast lives like an AI bot in our Slack channels and always has an answer ready. RTP Global is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage technology startups and has invested in 100+ companies across the United States, Europe, India, and South-East Asia. Six early-stage investments became multi-billion public companies: Yandex, EPAM, Delivery Hero, RingCentral, Datadog, and Ozon. RTP Global has offices in New York, London, Bangalore, Dubai, Paris, and Amsterdam. We just (June 2023) announced our latest fund, RTP IV ($1 billion), the follow-up after RTP III ($650M, Q1 2020).
Partner
2019 - 2021
henQ is a seed-stage venture capital (VC) firm investing in B2B software startups. We believe in the consumerization of enterprise software: successful startups are centered around their customers and focus on the jobs-to-be-done. We like founders that go after the unexplored problems, defining their own markets. Just (Q2 2020) raised our fresh new fund, henQ 4, in which we have €80M available to invest in the top B2B software startups. Next to being a Partner, investing in startups, and being a board member for our portfolio companies, I'm leading our effort to digitize the VC game with our in house data intelligence solution. Although VCs win big by investing in technology companies, the use of technology is still very much under par within most VC firms. Technology and the proper use of the massive amounts of available data can give every company an advantage, especially venture capital. At henQ we created our proprietary big data deal sourcing and tracking engine to make a start here, our internal CRM on steroids. henQ portfolio founders call me if they want to brainstorm on marketing and growth strategy, scaling their product organization, enterprise sales best practices, and expanding internationally.
VP Product Management
2016 - 2019
As VP Product Management, I lead product management, product marketing, and engineering/product development. I’m responsible for the complete product portfolio and the overall product experience. My main objective: delivering products that customers love while accelerating Backbase’s growth by making the customer successful, creating true product innovation, and customer focussed product development. Duties: * Responsible for the vision and overall direction of the product and the product roadmap * Product Marketing, including analyst relations, and thought leadership/product education * Day to day management of the product management organization (product managers, product owners, and product marketing). * Create a customer and design-driven culture and lead the innovation track * Work with strategic (product) partners and customers * Actively involved in sales and implementation cycles for marquee customers * Part of the global management team Backbase is one of the leaders in one of the hottest markets at the moment: fintech, and the vendor of choice for 150+ banks across the globe, impacting 250+ million end-customers they serve on a daily basis. Backbase empowers financial institutions to become digital leaders. Our software, the Backbase Omni-Channel Digital Banking Platform, unifies data and functionality from traditional core systems and new fintech players into a seamless customer experience, across all digital touchpoints. Industry analyst Forrester lists Backbase as the leader in its latest 3 editions of the 'Forrester Wave for Digital Banking Engagement Platforms'. Backbase powers FIs such as ABN AMRO Bank, HSBC, Virgin Money, RBC, NFCU, Key Bank, Uniqa, Hiscox, Sberbank, Tinkoff, Allied Irish Bank, and WestPac. Backbase was founded in 2003 and is privately funded with operations in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Toronto, New York, London, Cardiff, and Singapore.
Head of Global Marketing & Growth
2010 - 2016
As Head of Global Marketing & Growth at Backbase, I was leading the international marketing and growth activities on both sides of the Atlantic (with a strong focus on the USA and EMEA). Responsible for powerful sales and marketing initiatives for a global audience to generate demand and increase brand recognition, as well as leading the product marketing efforts. Duties: * Full ownership of marketing strategy and execution * Build, develop, and manage the marketing, inside sales, and sales development teams * Responsible for product marketing * Plan, execute, manage, and measure multi-channel, global marketing campaigns (online, events, thought leadership programs, lead generation, inbound marketing, outbound sales development, inside sales, etc.) * Define and execute go-to-market strategies for various products, regions, and verticals * Focus on performance marketing, content marketing, brand, event marketing, field marketing, and product marketing * Responsible for analyst relations and PR/influencer outreach. * Implement and manage marketing and sales systems, processes, and reporting (marketing automation, CRM, sales process, tracking channel and partner results) Accomplishments: * Successfully entered a completely new market (digital banking), pivoting from developer tooling to enterprise software. * Part of the global management team that grew the company from 40 to 600+ employees and signed up 80+ new large financial institutions as client, while more than quadrupling our revenues. * Defined and executed the go-to-market strategy that enabled us to become a leader in omni-channel digital banking. * Entered two Gartner Magic Quadrants and grew to the most visionary vendor in both MQs. * Entered a complete new Forrester Wave as a leading software vendor. * Named leader in new research reports by Ovum, Celent, and other industry analysts. * Launched a new thought leadership / content platform (Banknxt) and grew it to be part of the top 5 global fintech blogs
VP Product Management
2007 - 2010
As Vice President of Product Management at eFresh.com, I was active in a product and sales/marketing leadership role. I was responsible for marketing strategy and execution and led the product management functions for the company to ensure optimal product positioning, market share, and timely delivery of high-value mobile and web-based products, services, and technology tools. Improving the core product: eFresh.com, one of the largest international trading and news portals in the perishable industry. eFresh.com was a startup that grew quickly (I joined as part of the first 10 employees, grew the company to 100+) before shutting its doors in 2010. Accomplishments: * Part of the leadership team that grew the company from 10 to 100+ employees. * Responsible for the successful merge of 20+ acquired competitor portals and marketplaces into eFresh.com while keeping their members active and engaged. * Led the effort to introduce the first monetization projects (SaaS, advertising, and commerce) on the platform, growing the revenue from $1M to $5M in 3 years. * Responsible for the introduction of the outbound sales prospecting team and strategy, resulting in a 15 person call center doing customer prospecting and customer support.
Founder
2003 - 2007
Managed all aspects of the business and active as an interim marketing manager/marketing professional for SME's that started to discover the internet and mobile technology. Qurium provided services in the field of: * Ecommerce * Internet marketing * Improving conversion and usability of webshops and SaaS projects * Search engine optimization (SEO) * Search Engine Advertising (SEA) (Google Adwords) Founded in 2003, Qurium started as a full-service Internet agency and later, focused on the optimization of websites and online marketing campaigns to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) become more successful online.