Investor Profile: Samaipata

Samaipata is a Madrid-based venture capital firm founded in 2016 by José del Barrio and Eduardo Díez-Hochleitner, specialising in pre-seed and seed investments in marketplaces and digitally native vertical brands across Europe. With its third fund now live, it is one of the defining seed investors of Southern Europe, backing founders "who dare to better the world" from Madrid, with partners also operating from Paris.

The thesis

Samaipata describes itself as a high-conviction investor focused on a tightly defined hunting ground: digital platforms, marketplaces and consumer-tech businesses at the earliest stages. Its edge is operational rather than just financial — the firm runs The Hive, a founder community with operating partners, an annual Hive Summit retreat for portfolio founders (the 2026 edition was themed "AI or Die"), and a Founder Success platform built over a decade to give founders the hands-on support its partners say they would have wanted as entrepreneurs. The philosophy: "We don't mandate nor overpromise, our goal is to empower."

Stage, cheque size and funds

Samaipata invests at pre-seed and seed with initial ticket sizes typically between €500,000 and €3 million, and can follow on with up to €15 million per company. Its second fund closed at an oversubscribed €107 million in December 2021, bringing assets under management to around €150 million at the time, with 30% to 50% of that fund earmarked for Spanish startups. In 2026 the firm launched Samaipata III, a €110 million fund aimed at backing Europe's builders in the age of AI — roughly four times larger than its debut vehicle.

Notable portfolio

Recent activity shows the fund's conviction-led style. Samaipata led the €2.5 million round of Auctree, an online platform for distressed real-estate assets; led the €22 million seed round of Karmen; led the £2.9 million seed round of Geomiq, the UK manufacturing marketplace; and in 2026 re-invested in VIVLA's €8 million equity round, deepening a relationship that began in 2022. Earlier investments from Fund II included e-commerce fulfilment platform Big Blue, B2B payments provider Fintecture and fashion supply-chain tool Retraced, split across Spain, France, the UK and Germany.

Team

The partnership includes founders José del Barrio and Eduardo Díez-Hochleitner, alongside investors such as Yago Arbeloa in Madrid and Aurore Falque-Pierrotin in Paris, giving the firm coverage across Southern Europe and France. The team blends entrepreneurial operators with investors, consistent with the firm's hands-on positioning.

What to know before pitching

Samaipata is unusually explicit about fit: if you are a European founder building a marketplace, platform or digitally native brand at pre-seed or seed, you are squarely in its sweet spot — and its website openly invites decks from founders. Show network effects, supply-side leverage or a genuinely differentiated consumer proposition, and demonstrate that you are building for a pan-European market, not a single country.