Around 800 investors in Spain have reportedly backed various equity deals this year so far, creating a more competitive environment where strategic positioning is considered to be crucial. This, according to an update from CB Insights which noted that to differentiate themselves, companies such as Kibo Ventures are now “aggressively” pursuing deals in high-growth areas like AI, industrials, and climate tech that “position them to capture outsized returns.”
CB Insights predictive signals helped the research team with examining and analyzing which investors are now building the “strongest” foundations for portfolio enhancement.
As stated in the research study from CB Insights, here are the key takeaways:
- Kibo Ventures leads their ranking with 33 startup deals since 2023 (as of 9/30/2025). Of those, over one-fifth went to AI companies — including sustainability intelligence platform Clarity AI and industrial robotics startup Theker.
- Ysios Capital Partners leads in terms of the quality of its recent investments. Its investments since 2023 have a higher average Mosaic score (715 out of 1,000) than any other investor on the list. Top performers in its portfolio include regenerative medicine startup Neurona
- Therapeutics (747; develops off-the-shelf cell therapies for neurological disorders like epilepsy) and genetic medicine company SpliceBio (723; $196M in total funding from co-investors like Novartis Venture Funds).
Kibo Ventures also shows the “best” exit track record, “backing 12 startups since 2018 that went on to exit.”
The biggest exits across the fund reportedly include “monthly car subscription service Bipi (acquired by RCI Banque) and global payment platform Flywire (IPOed May 2021).”
Methodology
The researchers said they have used CB Insights predictive signals to review the dealmaking activity of hundreds of Spain investors “that fund private-market startups in exchange for equity, and rank them based on the strength and performance of their portfolios.”
Their scoring model factors in deal volume between “Q1’23 and Q3’25 and the share of portfolio companies invested in since 2018 that have gone on to exit.”
They have reportedly excluded government vehicles, various startup accelerators, and incubators.