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Recent Posts
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Apr 12
Instagram and why Facebook should stay private -
Mar 14
Why I left Goldman Sachs – oh please -
Mar 13
New investment: TheCurrencyCloud, Cloud automation for FX -
Mar 12
Seatwave, #ticketscandal and the future of live events -
Mar 7
Startup Mentoring, the Socratic Way
Notable Posts
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Feb 3
Inside500 Startups: the fund as API -
Jan 18
Should Angels break free from angel groups ? -
Jan 11
Dustin Dolginow for President ! -
Nov 4
#OWS 2: Hubris in the face of risk and a culture of entitlement
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Apr 12
Biography
I have been in venture for about 10 years now, having had a previous career structuring complex derivatives. Proof that there is hope for everyone. I have, quite literally, never once thought about what I do as "work" since I started working with entrepreneurs. It just feels like an extension of me.
I joined Atlas in 2004 and am a partner on the technology team. We do very early stage investments in technology-enabled businesses. I focus on software, e-commerce and digital media. I have done a fair amount of fintech work as well. I like diversity and cross-pollination, otherwise I'd be running a startup.
Entrepreneurs I have partnered with on the European side include Alex at Zoopla (#2 in UK online real estate), Joe at Seatwave (Europe's leading live events ticket exchange), Ben at DailyMotion (a video sharing site that over 130M access every month), Pierre at PriceMinister (sold to Rakuten for $250M) and others. Since moving to the US I have been working with Sravish and team at Kinvey (backend as a service), the Adsafe crew in NYC led by Scott Knoll (adtech) and others.
I was a founding investor and board member of Seedcamp, the leading pan-European seed incubator. I spent 4 years on the board and a ton of time mentoring. I love it. Since moving to Boston I got involved in Techstars with Katie and Reed here in Boston. I am a fan of both.
Before Atlas, I was co-managing a EUR100M fund set up by Achilles Macris (Dresdner at the time, JP Morgan today) and we did about 13 investments. We have exited CapitalIQ to S&P ($225M), Rainfinity to EMC (c. $100M), Cyota to RSA ($145M), Inxight to Business Objects (undisclosed), Consul to IBM (undisclosed), Opsys to CDT (all stock, undisclosed) and a few others.
I cut my teeth in venture as Venture Manager at Speed Ventures, a seed stage technology investor funded by Permira Ventures, Soros Partners and others. I reviewed a ton of projects and invested in some and most everything from that era went bust. Even the company we had made a killing on, LetsBuyIt.com, ended up dying. These were the good times, these were the bad times. None of it very real.
Before being on the venture rollercoaster, I used to be an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in London, and have further experience with Zurich Capital Markets and J.P. Morgan, all in structured derivatives. It's more interesting and challenging then you realize. I left because (a) we started arb-ing everything instead of doing risk management and (b) I did not want to be there when I was 40. I am not.
Interests
My kids, my other half, my snowboard and my music make me happy. I ride fakie on a big mountain board and listen (hard) to Neil Young, the Boards of Canada, Pavement, MGMT and many, many others. In fact that is quite a random selection. I have been spotted staring at Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies Van der Roe designed buildings for too long, I wish Tadao Ando designed my house and I would just lie on his perfect concrete all day. I like animation. I like slow sunsets on long train rides listening to Arab Strap.