Francisco Rivas

Francisco Javier Sánchez-Rivas is Chairman of LLYC’s Board of Directors and also leads the company’s M&A strategy, with responsibility for continuity of LLYC’s 2023–2025 strategic and investment plan and relationships with institutional investors. LLYC says he has advised its inorganic growth strategy since 2020.

Before LLYC, Sánchez-Rivas built a career in investment banking, finance, corporate strategy, private equity, and private placements. LLYC describes him as having participated in more than 80 transactions. He was Corporate Finance Director at Deloitte, then CEO of Edmond de Rothschild Corporate Finance for Spain and Portugal for almost a decade, and later founded Zechman Capital, a middle-market investment-banking boutique.

He has also served as an independent director of Netex Knowledge Factory since 2017, according to MarketScreener. His education includes a degree in Economics from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, an MBA from IESE Business School, an AMP from Harvard Business School, and postgraduate study in Financial Markets at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

• LLYC Venturing invests in early-stage startups in communication, marketing, and public affairs, specifically companies with a product already in market and a validated business model.
• Target sectors include AI, blockchain, virtual reality, IoT, and enterprise SaaS applied to communication, marketing, and public affairs.
• LLYC Venturing’s stated geographic scope is “Europe, Latinoamérica y Estados Unidos.”
• The vehicle was created to invest up to €5 million in startup projects, with ticket sizes between €50,000 and €500,000.
• The strategic rationale is not purely financial: LLYC Venturing says it helps portfolio companies with strategic and commercial support and by incorporating their products and services into LLYC’s client value proposition.
• LLYC’s 2020 announcement quoted founder José Antonio Llorente saying Sánchez-Rivas’s board role would help the firm “draw up an acquisitions investment plan” across “start-ups” and “more consolidated businesses,” seeking scale in existing markets, entry into new markets, and expanded service capabilities.