About Martin
Martin Varsavsky is a serial entrepreneur, occasional professor (Columbia, NYU, IE), and investor who has founded 8 companies and raised 3 VC-related funds in the last 30 years. He is also a member of the board of the German media company Axel Springer.
1990
Martin started in the 1990s by building Viatel, the first pan-European fiber optic network, which was worth $1.2B when Martin sold it. Then he founded Jazztel, a telecom operator, which was valued at $770M when he left the company. Later it would be sold for $4.5B. In 1999, Martin built Ya.com, which was sold to Deutsche Telekom for $650M. In 2005 Martin launched Fon, which became the world’s largest Wi-Fi network (+20M hotspots), backed by Google Ventures, Sequoia, Marc Andreessen, and Index Ventures.
2005
Between 2005 and the early 2010s, Martin made some of his most successful angel investments like Tumblr, a blogging company in which he made a 6,000x return, 23andMe, a biotech company founded by Susan Wojcicki, now valued at $3.5B, or Eolia, one of Spain’s largest renewable energy companies, sold for $1.6B in 2019.
2015
In 2015, Martin founded Prelude Fertility, now the USA’s largest chain of fertility clinics. Then in 2017, he founded Overture Life, focused on automating the embryology lab, backed by Khosla Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Marc Benioff, and Anne & Susan Wojcicki, among others. In 2018 Martin founded Goggo Network, an Axel Springer/Softbank-backed startup helping develop the legal/engineering framework for autonomous vehicles.
Martin has also been an active VC, having raised his first $15M fund, VAS Ventures, in 2018. Later on, he raised a ~$180M fund of funds, MVB, which has invested in some of the world’s top VCs (Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, etc.), as well as in first-class late-stage startups.
2021
In 2021, Martin founded Gameto, a biotechnology company using cell engineering to develop novel therapeutics, whose mission is to redefine female reproductive health by developing therapies that improve lives. It’s backed by FJ Labs, Insight Partners, TA Ventures, and Lux Capital, among others.
He also raised a $40M early-stage fund, Myelin VC, together with Matías Nisenson, Alec Oxenford, and Cesar Levene, investing in founders with ideas for a future he wants to live in.
Our Mission
About Jazzya
Jazzya is the reflection of Martin’s values and learnings. From Argentina, to the US, to Spain, we believe that great founders and opportunities can be found anywhere, across sectors and stages.
Our mission is twofold: as a family office, to scale Martin’s assets through meaningful, profitable, and healthy investment strategies. As an incubator and accelerator, to back and create impactful companies that will improve and reinvent their fields.