Robin Klein (venture capitalist)

Last updated

Robin Klein
Born
Johannesburg, South Africa
Alma mater University of the Witwatersrand
OccupationPartner at Index Ventures Founding Partner at The Accelerator Group (TAG)
SpouseHanna Klein
ChildrenSaul Klein and Dr. Melanie Morris
Relatives Jonathan Klein (brother), co-founder and CEO of Getty Images; [1] Martin Klein

Robin Klein (born December 1947 [2] ) is a British entrepreneur and investor. He was until 2015 a venture partner at Index Ventures and co-founder of The Accelerator Group, an advisor and investor in early-stage companies. [3] In April 2015, he and his son, Saul founded LocalGlobe, a seed stage venture capital firm.

Contents

Early life and education

Klein was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, specialising in cybernetics, [4] and a Master of Science degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, in 1969. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1976. [5]

Career

From 1991–1997, Klein was chairman and CEO of Innovations Group PLC, which conducted the first documented e-commerce transaction in the UK, in May 1995. [6] Klein was managing director, marketing and home shopping, at Arcadia, from 1996–99.[ citation needed ] Klein started his investing career in earnest in 1998, co-founding The Accelerator Group (TAG), a vehicle for investing in early-stage internet services, e-commerce and digital media businesses, with his son, Saul Klein. [7]

From 2010 to 2015 Klein was a venture partner at Index Ventures. He ran Index Seed, Index Ventures' seed fund, in partnership with TAG. [8]

In April 2015, Saul and Robin founded LocalGlobe, a Venture Capital Firm focusing on early stage (Seed) investment in Technology enabled businesses. They raised LocalGlobe 7, a fund of £45m by October 2015 and LocalGlobe 8, a £70m fund in March 2017.

Klein has been an early-stage investor in a number of companies, including Agent Provocateur (acquired by private equity firm 3i for £60m), [9] Lastminute.com (acquired by Travelocity for £577m, [10] Last.fm (acquired by CBS for $280 million, [11] Dopplr (acquired by Nokia), [12] LoveFilm (acquired by Amazon for $317 million), [13] Sit Up TV (acquired by Virgin Media), SlideShare (acquired by Linkedin for $119 million), [14] Fizzback (acquired by Nice Systems for $80 million), [15] Mashery (acquired by Intel for $180 million), [16] TweetDeck (acquired by Twitter for $40 million – $50 million), [17] and Twitterfeed (acquired by Bitly). [18] Klein is involved with OpenCoffee Club, a group his son Saul Klein started in 2007 to facilitate gatherings and networking among entrepreneurs, developers and investors [19] and is an advisor to Seedcamp which he helped to launch in 2007. [20] Klein is currently chairman of the board at moo.com, an online printing company; MyBuilder, an online marketplace bringing together consumers, builders and tradesmen; [21] and Wonga, a digital finance company, named the number one company in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100. [22] Klein is also a board member of EDITD, Farfetch, FreeAgent, Onefinestay, Skimlinks, and Zoopla, [23] an investor and board observer at TransferWise, and a non-executive director at Moneysupermarket.com (LSE :  MONY), [22] and an investor in other companies.

From 2007–2010 Klein spent a day a week as venture partner at Atlas Venture, an early-stage technology and life sciences venture capital firm. [7]

Philanthropy and non-profit involvement

Klein was chairman of Great Ormond Street Hospital Promotions Ltd, the funding company for Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children's hospital in London, [24] and was formerly on the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Community Centre for London which developed the JW3 community centre. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venture capital</span> Form of private-equity financing

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc.. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are often from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.

Travelocity.com is an online travel agency owned by the American Expedia Group. It has 12.4 million monthly unique visitors, making it the third most popular website owned by Expedia Group, after Expedia.com and Hotels.com.

lastminute.com is an online travel and leisure retailer.

Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California which specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. As of 2022, the firm had approximately US$85 billion in assets under management.

Sabre Corporation, a travel technology company headquartered in Southlake, Texas, is the largest global distribution systems (GDS) provider for air bookings. The company's primary product, the Sabre Global Distribution System, and others like it, act as neutral intermediaries, connecting travel suppliers like airlines and hotels with travel sellers like agencies. They offer real-time availability and pricing, making them important for corporate travel management.

Khosla Ventures is an American venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, focused on early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile, financial services, agriculture, healthcare and clean technology sectors. Some of its most successful investments include Affirm, DoorDash, Square, Impossible Foods, Instacart, and OpenAI.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Index Ventures</span> European worldwide venture capital firm

Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, investing in technology-enabled companies with a focus on e-commerce, fintech, mobility, gaming, infrastructure/AI, and security. Since its founding in 1996, the firm has invested in a number of companies and raised approximately $5.6 billion. Index Venture partners appear frequently on Forbes’ Midas List of the top tech investors in Europe and Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accel (company)</span> Venture capital firm

Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional operating funds in London, India and China.

Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, Internet, SaaS, business and financial services, and healthcare. Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Norwest has offices in San Francisco and subsidiaries in Mumbai, India and Tel Aviv, Israel. The firm has funded more than 700 companies since inception.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kennet Partners</span> British private equity investment firm

Kennet Partners is a private equity investment firm that provides growth capital to software, Internet and technology-enabled business services companies in Europe and the US.

Techstars is a pre-seed investor that provides access to capital, mentorship, and other support for early-stage entrepreneurs. It was founded in 2006 in Boulder, Colorado. As of January 2024, the company had accepted over 4,100 companies into its accelerator programs with a combined market capitalization of $106bn USD. Techstars operates accelerator programs in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a global venture capital firm focusing on seed stage, early stage investments and growth stage investments in the enterprise, fintech, consumer and healthcare sectors. Lightspeed has eleven offices globally and as of 2023 had approximately US$25 billion in assets under management.

Greycroft LP is an American venture capital firm. It manages over $2 billion in capital with investments in companies such as Bird, Bumble, HuffPost, Goop, Scopely, The RealReal, and Venmo. Greycroft was founded in 2006 by Alan Patricof, Dana Settle, and Ian Sigalow. The firm is headquartered in New York City and Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">500 Global</span> U.S. startup accelerator

500 Global is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, California in February 2011. They expanded to a second class of 21 in June 2011 and a third class of 34 in October 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erply</span> Company based in Estonia

Erply is an enterprise software company which provides cloud-based point of sale and inventory management technology. It was founded in Estonia by Kristjan Hiiemaa in 2009. As of 2010, the company has 2,000 users and 700 paid subscribers.

Seedcamp is a European seed-stage venture capital fund, headquartered in London, launched in May 2007 by a group of 30 European investors. The fund's Managing Partners are Reshma Sohoni and Carlos Espinal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AngelList</span> Website connecting startups, angel investors, and job-seekers

AngelList is an American software company for fundraising and connecting startups, angel investors, and limited partners. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge. Created by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SOSV</span> Venture capital firm

SOSV is a venture capital firm that provides pre-seed, seed, venture and growth stage funding to startups in the technology sector. The company conducts seed accelerator programs in Asia and the United States of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optimizely</span> American software company

Optimizely is an American company that provides digital experience platform software as a service. Optimizely provides A/B testing and multivariate testing tools, website personalization, and feature toggle capabilities, as well as web content management and digital commerce.

Secret Escapes is a members-only British travel company selling heavily discounted luxury hotel stays and trips through its website and mobile app. Secret Escapes operates in Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States.

References

  1. ↑ "Getty Images bought by private equity firm Carlyle Group for £2.1bn". The Jewish Chronicle Online. 15 August 2012.
  2. ↑ "Robin Matthew KLEIN - Personal Appointments (free information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
  3. ↑ "Index Ventures creates seed fund with Kleins at the helm". TechCrunch. 25 April 2010.
  4. ↑ "BusinessWeek Executive profile: Robin Klein". Archived from the original on 7 August 2013.
  5. ↑ "Robin Klein's blog".
  6. ↑ "The investors' view: Robin Klein". Growing Business. 15 January 2010. Archived from the original on 9 May 2012.
  7. 1 2 "Robin Klein allies with Index Ventures in next Venture Partner role". BusinessInsider. 26 April 2010.
  8. ↑ "Index Seed: Giving Europe's Early-Stage Investments a Much Needed Boost". readwrite. 26 April 2010.
  9. ↑ "Private equity firm 3i pays £60m for Agent Provocateur?". The Guardian. 15 November 2007.
  10. ↑ "Travelocity buys Lastminute.com for £577m". The Register. 12 May 2010.
  11. ↑ "CBS Acquires Europe's Last.fm for $280 million". TechCrunch. 30 May 2007.
  12. ↑ "Nokia to Acquire UK Startup Dopplr". TechCrunch. 23 September 2009.
  13. ↑ "Amazon Acquires LoveFilm, The Netflix of Europe". 12 May 2010.
  14. ↑ "LinkedIn Acquires Professional Content Sharing Platform SlideShare For $119M". TechCrunch. 3 May 2012.
  15. ↑ "NICE Systems Acquires Fizzback For Approximately $80 Million". TechCrunch. 19 September 2011.
  16. ↑ "Source: Mashery Is Selling To Intel For More Than $180M". TechCrunch. 17 April 2013.
  17. ↑ "Twitter To Buy TweetDeck For $40 Million – $50 Million". 2 May 2011.
  18. ↑ "Burp! Bitly Swallows Twitterfeed". All Things D. 9 April 2011.
  19. ↑ "The OpenCoffee Club Movement". readwrite. 23 May 2007.
  20. ↑ "seedcamp: Seedcamp Week 2011". Archived from the original on 6 June 2013.
  21. ↑ "Board Moves". The Sunday Times. 23 June 2013. Archived from the original on 11 September 2014.
  22. 1 2 "2011 Tech Track 100". Fast Track, in association with The Sunday Times. January 2010. Archived from the original on 7 May 2012.
  23. ↑ "Index Ventures partner bio".
  24. ↑ "UK Business Angels Association, Speakers". Archived from the original on 14 August 2014.
  25. ↑ "JCC picks three heads". The Jewish Chronicle Online. 11 November 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.