Cristina started her professional career as an entrepreneur, having co-founded Talkdesk in 2011, the first cloud-native Call Center solution that raised $500M from top global investors.
Cristina is currently an investor and board member of several companies as part of the founding team of Indico Capital Partners, the leading venture capital tech and sustainability focused firm, based Portugal. Indico Capital Partners focuses on technology and ocean related companies, targeting investments at Pre-Seed to Series B level.
In 2018, Cristina co-founded Cleverly.ai, an Artificial Intelligence automation startup that got acquired in 2021 by Zendesk, Inc the global leader in customer service software. As a Vice President of Product Cristina is currently responsible for its AI strategy.
Appointed as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2021, she holds a degree in Computer Engineering and Telecommunications from Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon). Cristina is a non-executive member of Galp’s Board of Directors and member of Galp’s Sustainability Committee.
As part of our Women in Tech podcast series we recently hosted a captivating conversation with Cristina. This blog shares highlights of her journey from a pioneering tech founder to a strategic investor and gives interesting insights into the evolution, challenges, and opportunities within the European tech market.
“15% of Unicorns are led by women, yet only 2% of funding goes to female founders”
At face value, in 2023, this is a shocking fact. Cristina gives us some perspective. She points out, specifically from Indico’s perspective, the appetite to invest in female founders is most definitely there. The issue is that female founders are still very much in the minority.
Cristina recalls that she was in the 15% of women studying Engineering at her university. Given that many founders or founding teams typically have a technical background, this goes some way to explaining the disparity in female tech founders and therefore the investment in female led start-ups.
Working with Indico’s portfolio companies over the years, it is clear to Cristina that unless you begin hiring with diversity in mind from the very start, it becomes ever more challenging to resolve. If you don’t have a diverse group of people, it will be unlikely that people will identify with and want to join your company.
Having transitioned from investee to investor, Cristina’s advice to founders for driving success in the long term is simple: Focus on product and team early on. Start with a solid product that solves a problem for your customer and delivers value. Prioritise hiring the right people and be fair to them. Building confidence within the team and instilling a sense of purpose can transform start-ups into resilient entities.
Cristina believes, as do all the interviewees in our Women in Tech series, that challenging times bring the best opportunities. Adversity encourages start-ups to focus on core values, growth and creative problem solving. In the face of market uncertainties, she observed that a shift in investor attitudes, patience and a focus on sustainable growth are becoming key tenets.
To connect with Cristina Fonseca visit Indico Partners
Listen to the full podcast with Cristina Fonseca
For advice on hiring exceptional talent, contact Alex Partners.
