Archipelago Next, the Canary Islands-based venture capital firm, has announced investments in five new companies from its second fund, all with projects under development across different parts of Spain.
Vantelis, Monolayer, Secrets Vault, CareerOS, and Dolfin offer critical solutions with direct applicability in areas such as cybersecurity, sales commissions, data management, and human resources technologies (HR Tech).
All of them are headquartered in Barcelona, except Vantelis, which is based in Navarre, and they join other young companies from across Spain that in the past year have joined Archipelago Next’s fund, such as Bcount, Tendios, Growth Road, and Oriane.
Defensibility
The fund is betting on startups that look to the long term and are structured around strategies based on A-Players and defensibility. In other words, with high-performing teams working on projects with high entry costs for competition and on a strong vendor lock-in that increases exit costs for the client.
“As the wave of artificial intelligence advances, our focus becomes sharper: we invest in defensibility. We understand that the cost of building software is tending toward zero, so we seek exclusively ‘A-Players’ teams that know how to leverage all the advantages of AI to execute faster, but whose real competitive edge lies in their data, their technical know-how, or their unique competencies,” says Miguel Quintanilla, General Partner of Archipelago Next.
Details on the new additions
- Vantelis: It focuses on business resilience through continuous monitoring of complex corporate infrastructures. Its solution proactively detects vulnerabilities and neutralizes cyberattacks in real time, ensuring operational continuity and the integrity of the most sensitive data. It is designed to integrate into corporate environments that require high compliance standards, as is common in sectors such as healthcare or banking, offering a robust layer of defense against emerging threats.
- Monolayer: Aimed at development and DevOps teams—which bring together developers and operations to speed up the software lifecycle—Monolayer eliminates friction and operational complexity in multi-cloud environments. It enables developers to deploy, scale, and manage cloud architectures through optimized, automated workflows. By reducing the burden of server configuration and network management, the solution lets technical teams focus exclusively on code and product development while also optimizing infrastructure costs.
- Secrets Vault: This startup innovates in the field of data protection by replacing traditional passwords with an advanced cryptographic protocol based on images. It enables both businesses and individual users to access, share, and secure highly sensitive information in an intuitive and exceptionally secure way. Its system is designed to dramatically mitigate the impact of any corporate data loss or security breach within minutes.
- CareerOS: A platform that helps university students in professional guidance roles: it guides them to build valuable relationships with HR managers and recruiters. At the same time, it provides universities with real-time data on their network of contacts and the employment progress of their students, helping to close the typical gap between academia and the job market.
- Dolfin: Has launched a tool that solves a critical and often contentious aspect within sales departments: manual incentive calculations. The platform replaces traditional spreadsheets with a centralized system that aggregates data in real time. By connecting business rules, CRM data, and reporting, Dolfin offers complete transparency to salespeople about their earnings and gives management absolute control, eliminating disputes and operational frictions.
