₦airaland Forum

Meet Adeyemi Ajao, lead investor for Workday Ventures.


Innovation series by Steven Loeb
July 25, 2015 | Comments
Short URL: http://vator.tv/n/3ee8

If you've been following this column, which we have been running for a few months now, you know that we have been looking at numerous early stage funds.

While many firms are looking for a financial return on their investment, not all VC funds are in it for the same reasons.

There are also funds, set up by established companies, who will invest in startups for an entirely different reason: to keep up with whats new and, down the road, be able to work with those companies once they are established.

One of those funds is Workday Ventures, which is led by Adeyemi Ajao.

Ajao co-founded Identified, Inc. and served as its Chief Executive Officer. He also co-founded Tuenti.

He earned a J.D. Law and Masters Economics and Finance degree from ICADE in Madrid and an M.B.A. and certificate in machine learning from Stanford.

VatorNews: What do you like to invest in? What are your categories of interest?

Adeyemi Ajao: Workday Ventures is focused on investing and partnering with startups that are leveraging data science and machine learning to address enterprise challenges. If we step back and look at it more generally, we fundamentally believe that 10 years from now every enterprise company will be a machine learning company or will not exist. This is what our clients are demanding, and we truly back that sentiment.

The start of Workday Ventures can be traced back to Workday’s acquisition of Identified, a company I co-founded, 18 months ago. Since the acquisition, Workday has been developing products focused on machine learning, and we announced those products last November. With that announcement, we started having several behind the scenes discussions with machine learning startups who wanted to learn more about what we were doing in the space. We wanted to build closer relationships with some of those companies, which lead us to Workday Ventures.

We are focused on helping these startups go to market, because we understand the techniques to help them sell to Fortune 500 companies. This is a natural fit because Workday knows how to get products to market. With the companies we invest in we want them to learn about how Workday went from zero to almost 1,000 clients and how they can replicate that on their own.

For us, this is truly all about learning: first, it’s purely about what algorithms are used, and how they are implemented. All four investments we have made have had extremely good engineering teams, and we've had a lot of engineering related conversations.

The other part is about applying these algorithms in different ways, for a specific business purpose.

VN: What would you say are the top investments you have been a part of? What stood out about those investments in particular?

AA: We have invested in four companies so far: Jobr, Metanautix, ThinAir, and Unbabel.

Unbabel makes translation available to everyone through machine learning. This is something we are very aware of, since our clients are multinational companies, and we have to translate every one of our products for them.

Their entrepreneurs had a clear passion about that, and the founders are PhDs in machine learning. They are very passionate and they were a very natural fit.

Jobr is a job hunting app. One of Workday’s products is recruiting so this is an area of interest to us. Jobr provides mobile job recommendations to users, which is the future of how people will look for their next job. This is something we want to support and learn about.

Jobr’s founder is very passionate about this space. He's an investment manager and a really smart person who cares about product.

ThinAir is a cloud security company with a machine learning engine. They will use an algorithm to learn which behaviors are ok, and which are a security threat. For example, if someone is accessing a file at 3 am, 10,000 miles away from where it’s usually accessed, it will see this as a security threat and automatically ask that person for authorization.

This is another founder that is passionate. Tony, the CEO, wrote fraud detection for MasterCard, and is now applying the same principles for ThinAir.

Metanautix solves broad and painful problems, having to do with data access for many different systems, which have to get together to do analysis. This is something our clients experience every day when they have to match their Workday data with their CRM or database data. The Metanautix founder had been an engineer at Google, in charge of data pipeline problems.

The common theme here is that all of these companies are solving enterprise problems, which are problems we care about, and are all lead by very technical teams and very passionate entrepreneurs.

VN: What do you look for in companies that you put money in? What are the most important qualities?

AA: We are all about enterprise problems that can be solved with machine learning. And for us to make an investment, it has to be a personal passion for the entrepreneurs.

We also have to make sure that Workday can help that particular company, and that they are at a stage where we can add value.

Basically what I mean by helping and adding value is that, with most companies, that value comes in two buckets. One is pure engineering value. We have a lot of engineering conversations, and learning goes both ways. We might use their algorithm in ways that they are not, and we can say, 'Here's how we are implementing it for a company that has 300,000 workers.'

We also want to help them go to market. We have a lot of executives who were here when Workday had three clients, and know how the platform and sales evolved to make it what it is today. We are able to give these companies coaching on how to get there too.

VN: Tell me a bit about your background. Where did you go to school? What led you to the venture capital world?

AA: I am originally from Spain. I started my first company during my last year in college, called Tuenti which was the Facebook for Spain. It was acquired by Telefonica for $100 million. Right after that I came here to Silicon Valley. The rationale was, let’s see if I can make it in the place where things are happening. I went to Stanford business school, and in my second year I started Identified.

Identified was LinkedIn on top of Facebook. We would aggregate and use machine learning for hiring out of Facebook profiles. There are a billion Facebook profiles, and based on the characteristics of their workers, we would tell companies if they should hire this person.

Workday truly believes that more data will lead to better decisions in the enterprise. What are the techniques of analyzing that data? In the process of building products at Workday, and being in touch with the startup ecosystem, investing in them was a natural fit. Now that I'm here this is a great avenue to help companies.

VN: What do you think are the big differences between being an entrepreneur and an investor?

AA: Entrepreneurship and venture are extremely different. I don’t think they have a lot in common, mostly because when you are a running company you are single mindedly focused on problem your company, and what problems you are having and all the stuff that entrepreneurs go through.

As an investor you can take a long term approach, as opposed to being an entrepreneur, where you are always executing.

What I like about being an investor it is that, one, you are able to have your head in different problems at the same time. And, second, I like being able to help entrepreneurs benefit from the vast amount of resources that Workday has.

VN: What is the size of your current fund?

AA: We are not structured like a traditional fund, as in we don't have a particular amount we invest. When we started doing this four months ago, VC experts on our board felt this was the right way to go.

It makes sense to do it this way, not to structure it, because what happens is it becomes kind of a trap. With a traditional fund, you have to invest $20 million by the end of the year, which means $5 million per quarter, and your average has to be $2 million. Even if you don't have something in that range, that’s how they think.

The size, stage, and total capital can vary a lot. It has to be a strategic fit for us to invest.

VN: Is there a typical percent that you want of a round? For instance, do you need to get 20% or 30% of a round?

AA: There is no set percentage that we aim for and we don’t seek control or board seats. We are not doing this for financial returns. We are doing this to learn from companies, and to help them learn.

VN: Where is the firm currently in the investing cycle of its current fund?

AA: We have been investing for four months.

VN: What series do you typically invest in? Are they typically Seed or Post Seed or Series A?

AA: The four that we have done are early, Series A, but that doesn't mean we won’t do later stage. We are looking at some later stage, and it’s important that we are able to help them as well.

VN: In a typical year how many startups do you invest in?

AA: Our target is 12 companies by the end of the year

VN: Is there anything else you think I should know about you or the firm?

AA: Due to the lack of formal structure we have been able to get back to companies within a couple of days, and execute investments in a couple of weeks. We have agility because of the lack of financial constraint.

This is extremely fun work. I get to work with the smartest people and learn from them. I'm glad I came over from Spain to do this.



http://vator.tv/news/2015-07-25-meet-adeyemi-ajao-lead-investor-for-workday-ventures

Adeyemi Ajao, the Nigerian Born Mark Zuckerberg of Spain


Nigerian born Adeyemi Ajao been described as the Mark Zuckerberg of Spain. He is regarded as the first African ever to sell his startup for $100 million on August 4, 2010, when Telefonica took controls of 85% of Ajao’s Tuenti, an invitation-only private social network site for students and young people in Spain. Tuenti popularly called “Spanish Facebook” was started by Adeyemi Ajao at 22 and four of his friends. Tuenti has over 14 million users and is the largest Invite-Only network in the world.

Tuenti, which in Spanish comes from "tu enti[dad]" meaning your identity, sounds like Twenty in English. It is rated as one of the fastest growing social network sites. Tuenti features many tools common to social-networking sites. It allows users to set up a profile, upload photos, link videos and connect with friends; recently a chat application has been added. Many other utilities, such as the ability to create events, are also offered. Unlike similar social network sites which feature banner advertisements, Tuenti has opted out of these traditional forms of "noisy" and obstructive advertising.

Zaryn Dentzel, one of its founders and current CEO, stated that they intend to focus on Spanish users more before possibly expanding to other countries.

Adeyemi Ajao was born in southern Spain to a Nigerian father and a Spanish mother. He was in Nigeria for only six years, spent two years in Italy and then moved to Spain when he was nine, growing up in the small beach town called Marbella.

Adeyemi earned a Masters in Finance from Emory, a J.D. from ICADE in Madrid, and an MBA from Stanford, and graduated at the top of his class at each university. He was elected one of the “Top 100 Spaniards of the Year” in 2009, and was invited by the U.S. Congress to the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama as a representative of the Spanish Commission for Accomplishments in Entrepreneurship.

Adeyemi’s father was one of the first mechanical engineers in Nigeria, who started a steel company in Nigeria. He saw his father fought hard to put his company together, but unfortunately didn’t make it in Nigeria, and left for Italy.

Ajao the Co-Founder/CEO of Identified has also launched other successful innovations such as Cabify, an application for hiring of vehicles with driver via mobile under the slogan "Move with style." Cabify requests high-end vehicles with professional drivers using technology, to bring consumers the luxury. You can ask about one of your cars from any device, be it a mobile phone, a computer or tablet. The user receives a notification with information about the designated driver, model and license plate number. On the screen of your device, you can see how the vehicle looks and can even contact the driver if needed.

TreyQ:
Who amongst us can appropriately translate 'Omoluabi' into English?

anyone

The son/daughter of God... literally

jstbeinhonest:
Ok,bro....lol,u sef know sey na man.

Everybody knows he is one of those bitter men...

uniklinkum:
Wow will this transgender born from intercourse between devils just stay clear off our thread. Mofo we don't talk about you, we don't go to your land yet you idiiots populate our space like the accursed that y'all low lifes are. You can sell your horseloads of craps to peeps that have not step on your wasteland.

Pls,do not answer that man again...pleeeeease...

jstbeinhonest:
Talking about NBS stats,i hope you know the SE is the poorest region in the south.

Pls,do not answer that loser again.Let him console himself with whatever he likes.He really needs the consolation...

jstbeinhonest:
Talking about NBS stats,i hope you know the SE is the poorest region in the south.

Pls,do not answer that loser again.

FreeGlobe:
Who will stop yoruba from igbo obsession? When will yoruba stop igbo obsession? Even that one called modath can't make two sentences without bringing igbo. Them swear for una? smh

We have never been obsessed with your tribe but your people are obsessed with the great Yoruba race because of their success worldwide. Azikiwe,Ojukwu etc...lol and your numerous traders in the SW will testify to this.
Yorubas do not usually go to your region,did not discuss about your tribe until recently when you could not control your sentiments and started the vituperations,so we the young ones are just giving you in kind...
Pls,I would not want you to reply me on this thread again...ciao.

FreeGlobe:
Everything to you guys is about igbo? Why this unhealthy obsession? Everyone of you except my bro shymexx. SMH. Are we in a competition? If we are, you know we are winning and you can't catch up so give your igbo obsession a rest.
This thread does not belong to the politics section. Atleast, this thread will now get 0 views from me. You either stay here to show you love your "yoruba commonwealth" or get banned. Shikena

You must be uneducated to even compare your Igbo tribe with the great Yoruba race.If you talk about competition,how would a race that is established worldwide compete with a struggling to be known tribe.If you can even make 1/50 of the achievements of the Yorubas then you can thank your stars.Yoruba had never been in your league since time immemorial...
Something could be wrong somewhere with Seun but we would not leave an Omoluabi and allow you to ruin him.Anywhere the thread is taken,God will always triumph...
Pls,aareonakakanfo,shymm3x,profshymmex...you are our main men,we cannot afford to miss you.
Remember that we are descendants of warriors,always winning,always winning by the power of the omnipresent,omnipotent,everpowerful GOD and SUPREME BEING.
Remember:A YORUBA IS ALWAYS A POTENTIAL SUCCESS...

tupacshakur:
Isn't now the perfect time for you to tell me what the "HD" means?

Let me help...HIGHEST DEFINITION...lol.

forgiveness:
You are not far away from the truth. But that is only in Nigeria Football. if we are to holistically examine their achievements in the world of Football, I think Yorubas has flourished more than any groups in Nigeria.
They can even for a world class team that can on any of the FIFA highly ranked teams any time any day.

Who do you think should make Yoruba best ever team?

And who do think can make the first eleven presently?


My current Yoruba team: keeper: Bamidel Aiyenugba(Behni Yehuda current Israeli champions)

Right back: Leon Balogun, Mainz Germany

Left Back: David Alaba, Barcelona fc Spain

Central Defense: Tiago Ilori, Liverpool England

Central Defense: Manuel Akanji, Fc Basel Switzerland

Central midfield: Deji Ali, Tottenham England

Defensive Midfield, Funso-ojo, Willem Netherland

Attacking Midfield: Abdul Ajagun, Panathinaikos-fc Greece

Left Winger: Michael Babatunde, Dnipro Dnipropetrovs Ukraine

Right Wing: Isaac Success, Granade Spain

Striker: Obafemi-martins


Substitutes: Dele Alampasu, Femi Thomas(keepers),
Gbenga Akokoyo, Moses Odubanjo, Daniel Adejo, Nurudeen Orelesi(Defense), Sam Ameobi, Sone Aluko, Raheem Lawal, Haruna Lukman, Ramon Azeez(midfield), Dominic Solanke, Abiola Dauda, Michael Olaitan,


What do you think?

I will have to agree that you have a good team here,lovely bruddah...

forgiveness:
Hmm! OK. I will latter check it.

The last time you were not sure of Michael Olaitan call up to the National team, but I can authoritatively tell you he has never been called once by the Senior national team.

I have always said the South Easterners flourished more than anybody else cos of the football politics thingy which had been there from time.Remove this and Yoruba footballers would be the ones to contend with just as Yorubas have the highest number of good players abroad.They will testify to this...

IFELEKE:
The law is an ass Ritchiee,
As it stands now, there is a lacuna-a gap not adequately provided for by the constitution- Faleke cannot fully lay stake to that mandate since the election has been declared inconclusive.
The argument now is whether he's allowed to conclude the election as the gubernatorial candidate or his party APC is allowed to field another person or INEC cancels the election totally or The PDP approaches the court to claim victory...
Many options, plenty confusion...

So have I read,my lovely brother...so much read have I...™sighs™

Firefire:
Ki ife Olorun se ni ipinle Kogi.

Amin...Ase o...

IFELEKE:
A ku Ojumo Gbogbo Ile O,
A de ku ibere ose tuntun, ose yi a san wa s'owo, a san wa s'omo, a san wa si aiku ti'i se baale oro...
Ojumo Ire O!

Can we discuss the recent happening in Kogi and the effect it will have on the political balance of the state, Oodua nation and nigeria as a whole?...
Recap:
Prince Audu, the projected winner of the gubernatorial election lost his life before or after INEC declared the election inconclusive thereby throwing up a lacuna never for once experienced in this nation.
Posers:
What next?
Referring to the case of Ameachi, Omehia Vs PDP or Atiku, Boni Haruna Vs INEC, can we safely say that his running mate should take up his mandate, conclude the election and possibly rule thereby breaking the age long Igala dominance?
Can the APC replace him with another?
What's in it for the PDP?
By the way, the running mate is James Faleke an Okun man(Yoruba).

Over to legal luminaries, political activists and the whole house...

Cc
Aaareonakakanfo, Firefire

Before anything else,let us take a glimpse at what the law says.. via the sun...
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/audu-sad-end/

I think God has hearkened to the hues and cries of the Yorubas and I believe that the will of God will prevail...

forgiveness:

Believe and it would come to pass....lol

coolitempa:
Stop coveting other people's land....Anioma is Benin....the ibos there are new settlers.....

pls,ma'am.You should not be antagonising these people because what they are fighting for is legitimate...
Nigeria has failed.Either we go for regionalism,true federalism or better still,let us go our different ways...pls,support them or let them be.

InyinyaAgbaOku:
I share in all your sentiments except when it has to do with obi

Pls sir,I am waiting for that thread.List of international football players....
When we analyse,you would see that there had been this sports politics in Nigeria from the outset due to the influence of Zik and co...

OnReflection:
Yes, I read about that particular fissure. You may recall that I did say, the Nupes are a rather ambitious lot.
It is one thing to dispute a historical account that locates Oshodi-Tapa as a slave but quite another to ascribe to imperial leanings, in the absence of veritable proof.

Thankfully though, despite what is widely seen as an attempt to whitewash the past, they have made no attempt to declare Lagos "no man's land".

History is surely a b.itch...lol

InyinyaAgbaOku:
We will create a thread instead. No Igbo was helped by Nigerian sports politics. As far as no governmental influence is needed, igbos dominate

Pls,do...

IlekeHD:
Honestly, I came here thinking we can do something to change Yorubaland for the better. Is that so much to ask? Is it?

Ti awon eyan n ba n se ole kakiri, bawo la se le trust awon to wa nile pelu iyanju [effort] wa?

O su mi serious. Nigba ti mo ka tiredi yen, se ni mo fe be sukun. So pathetic.

Tiredi wo niyen?

InyinyaAgbaOku:
Other Nigerians.
Just laughing at your comment where you said football doesn't require brains.
You guys should keep consoling yourselves . If igbos should release their own list of successful international and national soccer base, you will know football is in their genes.
Nothing like politics, money, etc

Pls,let us see the international list.Not the ones helped by Nigerian sports politics....

CabbieAC:
I think Olaitan has been invited before.Still need to confirm tho

Not the biggest fan of Funsho Ojo after watching some videos but he's okay regardless

All in all, lets wait and see.I don't want to paste the tribalist tag on Oliseh yet

He hasn't spent up to 1 year

We're watching

We have been watching a long time and the Super Eagles have continued going down the ladder.
We must insist through the media that Yoruba want up to at least 8 players in the SUPER EAGLES so that we can win the WC..
.

CabbieAC:
Loool I think Eleko was just pulling my legs

He knows

He is indirectly inviting Qelv who metamorphosised from son of hell...lol.

CabbieAC:


Na jazz you put for mouth

I actually have answers to your question infact I can give you more than 5 but that'll surely attract them here and I don't want that

You don't have to sweat too much.Let him look at the achievements of each tribe,home and abroad so as to determine who comes tops.Yoruba surely comes out shining in Fashion,Music,Education,Business,Politics,Sports,if analysed wholesomely,Sciences...social,physical,etc.
Strategy,war...lol,empire building,culture etc.
I like this...
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/why-i-left-my-juicy-banking-job-for-business-lekan-balogun-mccoy-clothing-ltd-boss/

CabbieAC:
Skirties Una no go kill pesin for here

https://www.midwestsportsfans.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/mj-laughing.gif

lol

CabbieAC:
Its even more unfortunate we have Yorubas who have fallen for this bullch!t

There are Yorubas who actually believe Romanis are naturally more gifted when it comes to Soccer than us

Same with the business thingy

I grew up playing football and there's hardly any football field I haven't stepped on in Surulere

Most of the exceptional talents I grew up with were Yorubas.

Same with me.One thing that I have noticed about the skirties is...they don't usual give a damn about any other tribe when they are at the helms of affairs and they(I dont know why)do not feel remorse for this bad trait in them.I fear for the time one of them would become the president...lol
It is only the Yorubas,I am wont to say,that are largely liberal...

anonimi:
Sorry sir but that Facebook post is mostly the ranting of someone who was affected by the sack of Aviation ministry people trying to wrap baseless sentimental things around it.
Two of the three main ministers responsible for Jonathan's socio-economic TRANSFORMATION are Yorubas, Adesina & Aganga. Is that not so?
Why would you support someone talking about JUICY appointments to "empower" Yorubas, which is clearly a CORRUPTION mentality
Should we not be focused on having COMPETENT people who can impact their areas of public responsibility?
Abi how do we make progress as a country?
The ongoing discussion on Eagles selection is not about "juicy" appointments or is it

I am sorry but that was how most yoruba felt with the exception of politicians and fortunately I am not a politician and I and the other non partisan yoruba felt former president Jonathan really "fall our hands"

anonimi:
HOW do you mean that Jonathan "sidestepped Yorubas"?
If you respond with specifics, then I can reply appropriately.
Cheers.

Read this and you would know what I meant...pls,don't argue with the Mulikah thingy.
I still respect Jonathan,though.He was a real gentleman...
https://mobile.facebook.com/TheYorubaPeople/posts/296047743834554

anonimi:
Why?

Everybody knew that GEJ sidestepped Yorubas and only he knows the reason why he did that.He was a man to my heart initially for a couple of years and then he slipped down there...he is still a nice man.I wish him good luck..

anonimi:
Beyond the physical buildings of the schools, should we not ask:

- How many qualified TEACHERS are recruited annually instead of using ONLY fresh graduate NYSC Corpers?
- How many lab. Attendants are recruited ANNUALLY?
- How many qualified LIBRARIANS are recruited each year?
-What is the IMPROVEMENT in the ratio of students to teachers/lab. Attendants/librarians etc from one year to another?
- If WE constantly ask these questions, is it not more likely the 774 LGA Chairmen and 36 state governors will recruit for primary, vocational, secondary & technical schools and so reduce UNEMPLOYMENT, hunger & death in our midst?
- If we regularly ask these questions, will our students not receive greater QUALITY of education, pass WAEC/NECO/JAMB/UTME etc better and create VALUE to make our society more competitive with the oyinbo societies?

Does anyone know why we find it difficult to ask these questions every time for our own improvement
Why?

This is a good one,brev...