Hugu Hugu

Hugo Arévalo Álvarez-Arenas is a Madrid-based entrepreneur and angel investor best known as co-founder and executive chairman of ThePowerMBA, the online business-education company later branded around The Power Business School. Europa Press reported in February 2018 that ThePowerMBA had appointed him executive chairman shortly after the program was founded by Arévalo, Félix Ruiz, Borja Adanero, Rafael Gozalo, and Kike Corral.

Arévalo studied Business Administration and Management at Universidad Francisco de Vitoria and completed a master’s in management strategy. ABC describes his first entrepreneurial effort as a padel-racket brand, after which he began investing in Spanish digital startups; El País reported that he started investing at age 24 and that his first startup investment was Tuenti.

Before focusing on ThePowerMBA, Arévalo was executive president of Hawkers and participated in the company’s major 2016 financing alongside Alejandro Betancourt and Tuenti co-founder Félix Ruiz. Europa Press and ABC both list his investing record across Hawkers, Jobandtalent, Cabify, Glovo, 21buttons, OnTruck, Deporvillage, Lime, Playtomic, and Tropicfeel.

ThePowerMBA was created in 2017 to make business education cheaper and more accessible through online microlearning. ABC reported that by the time of its profile, The Power Business School had more than 100,000 students in over 90 countries and more than 600 corporate customers.

• Invests as an angel and advisor, with Signal listing his investment range at $5K–$50K and a $25K sweet spot.
• Focuses on early-stage companies across pre-seed, seed, and Series A, especially in categories where he has founder/operator experience: edtech, mobility, logistics, e-commerce, fashion, marketplaces, and consumer internet.
• Looks for founders addressing real sector shifts; ABC quotes him as wanting to keep investing in “jóvenes que tengan la ilusión de cambiar mercados y sectores.”
• Favors long-term company building and relationship building. In El País, he said contacts are built “a largo plazo,” and advised founders that entrepreneurship requires fighting “hasta el final.”
• Sees technology and digitalization as broad, irreversible trends. In El Español, he argued that Spain’s startup ecosystem is ready for European digital-transformation funding and that success depends on a long-term national commitment to digitalization.