Sançar Şahin

Who they are

Sançar Şahin is Co-Founder and CMO of Oliva Health — built the company from scratch in 2020 after running VP of Marketing at Typeform, where he spoke at the OnBrand conference.

Person

Sançar co-founded Oliva Health in 2020, going from senior operator to founder at the moment workplace mental health was becoming a serious HR category. Before that, he was VP of Marketing at Typeform — a role he held long enough to speak at OnBrand as a representative of the brand — and earlier held marketing roles at Hotjar, Getapp, and Trovit. The through-line is building brand and growth functions at product-led B2B companies before taking the leap to start his own. As CMO and co-founder, he owns both the brand and the go-to-market, which is a distinct combination — he's not just a hired CMO, he has founder skin in the game. He's appeared on the K Fund PodKast talking about brand building and content at early-stage startups, on the Founders For Good podcast on workplace mental health, and in the Just Entrepreneurs and Balance The Grind interview series. His public content clusters around workplace mental health, the founder journey, and marketing — practical operator-level takes rather than thought-leadership abstraction. Possibly — his time at Hotjar and Typeform, both Barcelona-area product companies with strong content cultures, is where his conviction about brand-as-distribution was shaped.

Company

Oliva's most recent reported financing was a €5 million Seed round led by Molten Ventures in June 2023, bringing total funding to approximately $14.2 million across 4 rounds from 9 investors since the company launched in 2020. Around that same period, Oliva doubled its team, grew its therapist network from 50 to over 250, and reported revenues up over 300% year-on-year. The company also announced plans to launch an Oliva app, expand into new markets, and add languages including Croatian, Serbian, and Dutch. Oliva is now available in over 27 countries and 14 languages, with customers including Marshmallow, Maze, and Leapsome. AI-enhanced care models are listed as a forward roadmap item.

Market

Oliva operates in the digital workplace mental health space, matching employees with therapists via an online platform and selling the benefit to employers across the UK and EU. The sector is seeing increased adoption of AI and online care models alongside growing regulatory scrutiny. The funding round data that mentions athenahealth, Electronic Care Corp, and Infinitus as competitors is inconsistent with Oliva's actual market — those are US healthcare IT players — and the more relevant competitive set is other digital mental health platforms targeting European employers, though specific named rivals are not detailed in available data.

Network

Sançar co-founded Oliva alongside Javier Suarez (CEO) and works closely with Dr. Sarah Bateup, Oliva's Chief Clinical Officer, who leads the clinical side of the product. Molten Ventures, who led the 2023 Seed round, is a notable investor relationship. Huw Slater is also listed as an Oliva co-founder on the leadership team.

Javier Suarez· Co-Founder and CEO, Oliva Health
Huw Slater· Co-Founder, Oliva Health
Dr. Sarah Bateup· Chief Clinical Officer, Oliva Health

How they likely show up

Moved from VP Marketing at Typeform (a high-profile operator role) to co-founding Oliva → comfortable with risk and self-directed work; unlikely to need hand-holding or institutional structure.
Holds both co-founder and CMO titles simultaneously → probably operates across strategy and execution at the same time, not siloed in either.
Public speaking and podcast appearances cluster around brand building, early-stage marketing, and workplace mental health → comfortable being visible and articulate on his domain; likely to engage well with specific, substantive questions.
Career path through Trovit → Getapp → Hotjar → Typeform → founder suggests deliberate progression through increasingly well-regarded product companies before making the leap → likely values trajectory and intentionality in career choices.
Possibly — time at Hotjar and Typeform, both known for content-driven growth, suggests he thinks about marketing as a compounding asset rather than a campaign-by-campaign spend.

Conversation tips

→ Reference the K Fund PodKast episode specifically — he talked at length about brand building and content at early-stage startups, and bringing it up signals you've done real prep.
→ Ask about the Typeform-to-founder transition — going from VP Marketing at a category-defining brand to building your own company is a deliberate move worth understanding.
→ He co-owns both brand and growth at Oliva, so don't treat him as purely a CMO — he thinks like a founder first and a marketer second.
→ The 300% revenue growth and therapist network expansion are real milestones; he'll respond better to specific engagement with those numbers than to generic congratulations on the company.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the K Fund PodKast appearance — he discussed brand building and content at early-stage startups alongside the Typeform journey, which means he has a considered, structured view on this topic you can engage with directly.
Reference the OnBrand conference talk — he spoke as VP Marketing at Typeform, one of the strongest brand-led B2B companies in Europe, which is a specific credibility anchor worth acknowledging.
Lead with the 2023 therapist network growth — going from 50 to over 250 therapists while doubling the team and hitting 300%+ revenue growth is a concrete operational story, not just a funding headline.

Discovery questions

How did you think about building Oliva's brand from zero after running marketing at a company like Typeform that already had a strong brand identity?
With Oliva now in over 27 countries and 14 languages, how has internationalisation changed how you approach content and positioning — does one narrative travel or do you localise substantively?
You're simultaneously co-founder and CMO — how do you split your time between the founder responsibilities and the marketing function as the company scales past early-stage?

Avoid

Don't treat him as a pure marketer-for-hire — he is a co-founder with equity and strategic ownership, and framing the conversation around marketing tactics alone will undersell the conversation.

Make it yours