--- title: "About Jelmer" url: https://jelmerdejong.com/about/ description: "Who Jelmer de Jong is: Partner and Chief Technology Officer at RTP Global, pre-seed and seed investor in enterprise software, cyber, developer and cloud tooling and infrastructure, and before that a web agency founder, early employee at eFresh.com and ten years at Backbase as it grew from 40 to 1,000 people." date: 2025-01-02 author: Jelmer de Jong --- # In short I am Jelmer de Jong, Partner and Chief Technology Officer at [RTP Global](https://rtp.vc/team/jelmer-de-jong/), a global early-stage venture capital firm. I invest at pre-seed and seed, and sometimes in an A round, in enterprise software, cyber security, developer and cloud tooling, critical infrastructure and fintech infrastructure, and as CTO I build the data, AI and intelligence capability the firm runs on. Before venture capital I ran a web agency, joined eFresh.com early, and spent almost ten years at Backbase as it grew from 40 to over 1,000 people. I invest in the United States and Europe, live in Amsterdam, and work from Amsterdam, London and New York. The details are below; the thesis is on the [investing](https://jelmerdejong.com/investing/) page. # TL;DR "The internet" would be the answer if you ask me what my hobby is. But "the internet" has also been the red line throughout my career. I helped offline retailers with my web agency in the 2000s by using the power of the internet to build their first e-commerce sites. I brought the internet and, with that, access to a global market for farmers and the fresh produce industry through the first startup I joined, eFresh.com. I helped banks across the globe to better use the internet by delivering state-of-the-art digital and mobile experiences while at Backbase. Now, I am using the power of the internet (and the massive amounts of data it generates) to gain an edge as an [investor at RTP](https://rtp.vc/team/jelmer-de-jong/). As VC, I invest at pre-seed and seed, and sometimes in an A round, in Enterprise Software, Cyber (Security, Intelligence, Defense/Offense), Dev & Cloud, Global Resilience, Critical Infrastructure, and Fintech Infrastructure. In other words, anything that is or can be big on GitHub and any startup going after a line item on the price list of IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc. # The long story ## Digitalization of the retail industry: my web agency During high school, I started building my first websites for myself and my family and quickly discovered I could earn money by doing this. My first paid-for (cash sent via the post) project was a website for the show dogs of a proud owner, and it made me think, this is what I want to do: sit behind my computer and earn money with my hobby. This first paid project resulted in my web agency creating websites and e-commerce stores, and later, the first mobile apps. I worked with offline retailers on their first digital experiences and helped up-and-coming tech startups with the initial version of their products. ## Digitalization of the fresh produce value chain: joining my first startup eFresh.com Through my agency, I met many other founders, enabling me to work with multiple startups on the first versions of their product and their launches. After a while, I joined my first startup, eFresh.com, a trading platform for the perishable industry, with the noble ambition to give farmers and producers a fair price for their work by cutting out the middleman and going 'direct' to the supermarkets. With that: bringing the internet and the power of digital to a traditional, family-run, offline business. This is a market that large buyers and auction houses dominate. This startup experience brought everything: rapid growth, raised money from one of the largest Dutch banks, the [mandatory Techcrunch article](https://techcrunch.com/2009/01/08/dutch-startup-efreshcom-raises-54-million-from-rabobank/) (this was still cool in 2009), and the inevitable bankruptcy that followed. ## Digitalization of financial services: joining Backbase The second startup I joined was [Backbase](https://www.backbase.com/), and that journey was way more successful. I've seen a unicorn being created from the inside out: I joined Backbase at 40 employees and spent almost 10 years there, doing [everything that needed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpNCpXNeywE&ab_channel=FinovateTV) to be done (product, marketing, GTM, international expansion, sales, and engineering). I've led the company through 2 pivots until we found our sweet spot in building digital banking software (bringing the internet and the power of digital to a traditional, slow-to-adopt industry: financial services), and that pivot enabled us to cross the chasm (1,000 people when I left, 2,000+ right now, $4bn valuation, 100+ banks using the product in production). This gave me broad experience in different functional areas, a big appreciation for and masterclass in enterprise sales and building enterprise software, and I also got to see what type of person it takes to truly be a unicorn founder. ## Digitalization of venture capital: becoming a VC After almost 10 years at Backbase, I wanted to try something different, but I had no idea what, so I joined a venture capital firm (henQ, a small 80m fund investing in seed & Series A B2B SaaS companies). Why? As a VC, you have the opportunity to meet many different founders who are creating different products in different markets. But all with the same goal: to make it a great success. However, what stood out to me (coming in with a romantic picture of what VC would be) was how, even though VCs win big by investing in technology companies, the use of technology is still very much underutilized by most VC firms. Technology and the proper use of the massive amounts of available data can give every company a significant advantage, especially those in venture capital. I started exploring [data-driven venture capital](https://jelmerdejong.com/posts/why-we-believe-in-data-driven-venture-capital/) and made it my main focus when switching firms, and joined RTP in 2021. ## Investing at RTP At [RTP](https://rtp.vc/) (a global early-stage investor with a $1bn self-funded fund), I develop our intelligence capability, using tech, AI, and data to find the very best founders and startups. I like to invest in Enterprise Software, Cyber (Security, Intelligence, Defense/Offense), Dev & Cloud, Robotics, Critical Infrastructure, and Fintech Infrastructure. In other words, anything that is or can be big on GitHub and any startup going after a line item on the price list of IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc. I invest in early-stage companies: specifically, pre-seed and seed, and sometimes an A round. In April 2026 I ran a 30-day sprint that pulled the whole firm out of business-as-usual to build with AI, with 52 internal apps and several production agents shipped by the end of it. I wrote up what worked and what did not in [Building an AI-native firm in 30 days. Except we didn't.](https://jelmerdejong.com/posts/building-an-ai-native-firm-in-30-days-except-we-didnt/) --- Jelmer de Jong, Partner and Chief Technology Officer at RTP Global. More at https://jelmerdejong.com/ (https://jelmerdejong.com/llms.txt).