Itxaso del Palacio
Growing up in Basque Country, my family always encouraged an independent spirit. My journey to Notion has included a decade of classical ballet, working on the assembly line at DaimlerChrysler, a masters in engineering, and ultimately a PhD in Entrepreneurship. This combination of discipline, structure and competition has shaped my approach to the startup world. I am methodical, obsessed with efficiency and focused on identifying high performance patterns. I went to Silicon Valley in 2006, planning to stay for a month and ended up staying for 3 years. I worked on my PhD as a Visiting Researcher at UC Berkeley which provided a perfect ecosystem for me - a place where you eat, breath and dream technology, innovation and entrepreneurialism. I quite literally caught the startup-virus.
Since moving to London in 2010, I have been an entrepreneur, investor and educator. I have invested in more than a dozen businesses and taught entrepreneurship to around 2,000 students at University College London and Imperial College. I have a passion for helping entrepreneurs build their businesses, supporting them with my network, knowledge and positive attitude. I joined Notion in 2018 from M12 (formerly Microsoft Ventures) where I launched their UK office and led investments in Onfido, Beamery and Unbabel. During this time, I saw first hand that Europe has incredible talent and opportunities. The team at Notion is highly entrepreneurial with the ambition to be the most sought after B2B tech investor and I joined Notion as I am committed to helping build the very best enterprise technology portfolio in Europe. I feel incredibly fortunate to work in an industry that allows me to meet and work with the most ambitious and incredible people: founders. I love to meet founders that blow me away, are passionate about what they do and captivate me with their vision and business ideas.
Since 2013, I have also been teaching kick-ass spinning classes at 7am at Virgin Active Islington and Bank for those who want to stop by for a great start of the day!
Companies include: Bound, Cledara, Cobee, Forest Admin, Mya, Orus and YuLife
