Index Ventures

We first started investing in London in 2001 when we backed two American former consultants - Josh Hannah and Vince Monical - who had moved here to start Flutter, the business which later became Betfair. In fact, it’s pretty remarkable how far London has come in entrepreneurial terms since we made that first investment and Danny opened our first London office on Clifford Street in 2002.

Today as we announce the news that we’re launching Index’s second growth equity fund, a new €500m fund to invest in fast-growing businesses, it seems like a good chance to take stock and give a little context.

One area where we are committed to enhance our proposition to entrepreneurs and invest more time and money is the Nordic and Baltic area. Index Ventures has already invested a disproportionately high share of funds and time here relative to the size of the markets. Here we reflect on what Index has been up to in the region, and just why it creates so many innovative and successful tech companies.

Having noticed that Melbourne seemed to be popping up as a hot-spot over the last few years with the emergence of Atlassian and 99designs, I asked Steve Lipchin, a business school friend who recently moved there from South Africa, to let me know what companies he thought we should look at. A few weeks later, Steve put me in touch with Kaggle.

Just a short note to offer big congratulations to the amazing team at The Gifts Project on their acquisition by eBay.

We’ve had a relatively short relationship since we were lucky enough to have been introduced 12 months ago by Yossi Vardi in Tel Aviv, but it’s been an absolute pleasure and privilege to work with Ron, Erez, Matan, Maya and Eyal as they set about defining the landscape for social commerce from a small but killer office above an awesome restaurant on what has become the most famous road in Israel in the last 12 months.

Today, Cloud.com has announced that it is being acquired by Citrix. It is a bittersweet moment for us at Index as we have loved working with Sheng and the team at Cloud.com, but Citrix made an offer that the team couldn’t refuse.

The IP Networking industry has matured significantly from the go-go days of the 90’s. In that era, companies like Cisco, Wellfleet, Synoptics and Cabletron grabbed headlines the way Facebook and Twitter do today. In was an exciting time because the birth of the web created massive demand for communications networks that spoke IP – the lingua franca of the Internet.

We are delighted to announce that Sami Lababidi has started to work part-time at Index Ventures as an Entrepreneur in Residence. Sami was absolutely pivotal in the success of Playfish but always extremely humble and generally left the promotional slots to be filled by Kristian Segerstråle and Sebastian De Halleux.

The 1770 and 80s were tumultuous and exciting times in America’s history. The “founding fathers” had catalyzed the nascent country into declaring its independence from England and architected the foundation for what was to become one of the most remarkable ascents of national power over the next 300+ years. These were heady days. But, the challenges facing the country in the late 1770s were also daunting. This was a start-up nation that had declared war against the Microsoft or Google of the time: the all-powerful nation of England.

Over the last 5 years many of us have made the 3.2 mile trip between Conduit St and Old St countless times. While we love to travel, as we’ve learned with our move to the US, there comes a time when you have to put down some roots.

So from today, the Index team in London will have two homes - one in Central London in Mayfair and one in East London near Silicon Roundabout.