Joan Casellas

Joan Riba Casellas is a co-founder and long-standing partner of Grup Vilar Riba, a Catalan professional-services group he built together with Manel Vilar. The two are profiled jointly in the "Testimonios para la Historia / Auditors, consultors i fiscalistes" interview series, and both were honoured by the Col·legi d'Auditors with a commemorative plaque marking 25 years as registered (ROAC) auditors. Riba is an economist/auditor by training and has served as the group's managing partner.

The group operates under several brands: Vilar Riba (tax, legal, labour, consulting and corporate finance), VIR Audit (the audit arm), and VIR Corporate Finance (M&A and transaction advisory). Today it counts 175–200+ professionals and more than 30 years of experience, with offices in Vic (headquarters), Barcelona, Madrid and Puigcerdà. It is a member of GGI (Geneva Group International), one of the world's largest professional-services networks, and VIR Audit ranks among the top firms in Catalonia (roughly 7th–8th among Catalan audit firms, and inside Spain's top 20).

As managing partner, Riba accepted the "Professional Office of the Year 2020" award from the General Council of Economists of Spain (presented by its president, Valentí Pich), a ceremony held virtually with participation from Catalan economic authorities. Under his leadership the firm expanded into corporate finance in Barcelona, launching VIR Corporate Finance alongside fellow partner Ramon Riera to add M&A, valuation and transaction-advisory services.

One caveat worth flagging: Spanish commercial-registry (BORME) records indicate that Joan Riba Casellas was recorded as separating as a professional partner of Vilar Riba around 30 January 2023, in connection with an ownership/share restructuring. However, VIR Audit's and Vilar Riba's current websites still list him as a Partner, and the email in the source record (`[hidden]`) follows the firm's active naming convention — so his precise current status is best confirmed directly with the firm.

• Not a classic startup angel. Public evidence positions Riba as a corporate-finance / audit partner, not a personal seed-stage angel investor. Treat the "Angel Investors / Seed Round" tags in the stub as unverified.
• Firm-level activity is advisory, not primarily principal investing. VIR Corporate Finance helps clients "optimise the value of corporate M&A transactions, initiate and execute acquisitions," and facilitates investor access and alternative (non-bank) financing — i.e., it connects companies to capital rather than writing angel checks.
• Buy-side and sell-side mandates: company purchase and sale mandates, business valuations, impairment testing, purchase price allocation (PPA), independent expert reports and fairness opinions.
• Early-stage adjacency: VIR Audit explicitly offers "Audit of Financial Statements & Startup Companies" and audits for venture-capital entities, foundations and associations — so the firm sits close to the startup/VC ecosystem in Catalonia.
• What earns a "yes": in the firm's own framing, engagements are about "minimising risks and obtaining the best possible value from the transaction," reflecting a conservative, diligence-led, valuation-driven approach consistent with an auditor's mindset.