Martín Varsavsky Waisman-Diamond (born April 26, 1960) is an Argentine entrepreneur based in Spain who has founded several companies around the world, including Urban Capital, Medicorp Sciences, Viatel, Jazztel, EINSTEINet, Ya.com, Eolia, FON and, more recently, Prelude (now Inception), Overture Life, and Goggo Network. This track record as a serial entrepreneur led Forbes magazine to describe him in 1999 as young, rich, and restless.
Early life and education
Son of Carlos Varsavsky and Silvia Waisman-Diamond, Varsavsky attended primary school at New Model School and secondary school at Nicolás Avellaneda. He was raised in the Jewish faith.
At age 17, he moved with his family to the United States as a refugee, supported and assisted by B’nai B’rith, after the forced disappearance of his cousin, David Horacio Varsavsky. In 1981, he earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University, in 1983 a master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, and in 1985 an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Professional career
In 1984, at the age of 24 and still in university, Varsavsky founded Urban Capital Corporation, a real estate company in New York that was one of the first to develop loft-style apartments. Urban Capital bought industrial buildings and converted them into residential units and offices, developing up to 50,000 square meters in the SoHo and Tribeca neighborhoods of New York City.
In 1986, together with Argentine scientist Claudio Cuello and César Milstein (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine), Varsavsky founded Medicorp Sciences, a biotech company in which he is still a shareholder. Based in Montreal, Medicorp was one of the first companies to manufacture products for AIDS and cancer (such as HIV and PSA tests).
In 1991, Varsavsky founded Viatel, a telecom company in Colorado that provided callback services as an alternative to traditional long-distance operators, similar to Econophone. Later, Viatel became an alternative telecommunications provider in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the UK. In 1997, Varsavsky resigned from his official positions and sold his shares in Viatel.
In July 1995, Varsavsky moved to Madrid, Spain. From 1999 to 2011, he taught entrepreneurship at IE Business School (formerly Instituto de Empresa) in Spain. In 1997, he founded Jazztel, an alternative telecom provider on the Iberian Peninsula. Based in Madrid and with its own infrastructure, the company became a broadband operator for residential and business clients, competing with Telefónica. Jazztel PLC went public in December 1999.
In 1999, he created Ya.com Internet Factory, a Spanish-language Internet / DSL provider that also included the online travel agency Viajar.com (later sold to Bravofly Rumbo Group). Ya.com was owned by Jazztel (70%), Varsavsky (10%), and the company’s staff (20%). It was sold in 2000 to T-Online International, the internet subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, for €550 million.
In 2000, Varsavsky founded EINSTEINet AG, an Application Service Provider (ASP) in Germany. The company was based on the idea that most applications would migrate from personal computers to the Internet. EINSTEINet did not materialize, the company was sold, and Varsavsky incurred €35 million in losses.
He launched FON in Madrid in late 2005, offering international WiFi services using user-generated infrastructure. FON received backing from investors such as Google, Skype, Microsoft, Index Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Deutsche Telekom. By 2012, the network had reached over 7 million WiFi hotspots in multiple countries.
In 2015, with support from Lee Equity, he founded Prelude Fertility / Inception, now the largest chain of fertility clinics in the United States.
In 2017, he founded Overture Life, focused on automating embryology laboratories. Overture is backed by Khosla Ventures, Marc Benioff, and Allen & Company.
In 2018, he founded Goggo Network, a startup backed by Axel Springer / Softbank, which is helping to develop the legal and engineering framework for autonomous vehicle fleets, with plans to deploy them.
Varsavsky has written articles on business and international relations for El País, Newsweek, El Mundo (Spain), and The Huffington Post. He is a regular speaker at conferences such as Next Conference. He is also a blogger and contributor to the LinkedIn Influencers Program, where he writes and speaks on entrepreneurship and technology. In 2012, Varsavsky began teaching entrepreneurship at Columbia University in New York City.
He has been an early-stage investor in companies such as iTravel, Aura Biosciences, Menéame, Netvibes, Plazes, Technorati, Eloquii, Dopplr, Tumblr, Hipertextual, Busuu, 23andMe, MUBI, and Result. Outside of telecommunications, he was the majority shareholder of El Moralejo wind farm (a renewable energy generator) and Proesa, owner of the fashion brands Sybilla and Jocomomola.
He is currently executive chairman and founder of Prelude Fertility and CEO and founder of Overture Life.