Welcome, Maria Raga!

At Creandum, we have the privilege of working with some of the world’s most incredible leaders, those who inspire others to join or go out and create rocketships and build category defining businesses. The list is long, with stars like Daniel Ek (Spotify), Markus Villig (Bolt), Sebastian Siemiatowski (Klarna), Jacob de Geer & Magnus Nillson (iZettle), Christian Hecker (Trade Republic) and Jeppe Rindom (Pleo) to name a few.

Maria Raga is one of these inspirational figures, one who many look up to. As I put it in a previous article, when Maria stepped in as CEO in 2016, she took the best of what Depop was born with and built its culture and organization into something incredibly unique and resilient. Maria attracted phenomenal, global, talent, and built a truly diverse team. Today we are so excited to welcome her to Creandum.

We first met Maria when she was running operations at Depop when the Creandum funds invested in 2015. As CEO, Maria led the company to scale to over 30 million users, expanding the team to over 400 people and ultimately to a $1.6bn acquisition by Etsy in 2021.

Maria began her career at Bain and then ran Travel at Groupon, before joining Depop firstly as VP Operations and then as CEO from 2016 to 2022. She now sits on the Digital Advisory Council at ITV and is a prolific angel investor, in companies such as Trip, LOCI, OMADA, Clipdrop (acquired by Stability AI) and Transak.

Maria has so much to offer Creandum and its portfolio companies. With Maria, we will renew our interest in uncovering the next winners in the consumer segment. She will also advise the portfolio on building enduring organizations and optimizing company culture for the long term.

Welcome, Maria - we are so pleased you are joining us!