Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

Sources: Lightspeed Venture Partners is close to hiring a new London-based partner to put down further roots in Europe

Lightspeed Venture Partners, the well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has backed the likes of DoubleClick and Snapchat, is in the midst of hiring a new London-based investment partner as it looks to put down further ties to Europe, TechCrunch has learned.

According to multiple sources, Paul Murphy, whose investments include Tier, Hopin, Klang, and Bunch, is being hired away from Northzone, the European VC firm that’s probably best-known for being an early backer of Spotify. The signing is still in progress but could be announced in the next few weeks. Murphy has been at the Northzone for three years, and was promoted to general partner in late 2019 when the firm raised a new $500 million fund in late 2019.

I’ve reached out to Murphy and Lightspeed for comment, and will update this article if or when I hear back.

VCs are chasing Hopin upwards of $5-6B valuation

Prior to VC, Murphy co-founded Dots, the mobile games company in New York. He also built and invested in various companies at startup studio Betaworks. (Notably, Murphy helped launch Giphy in the U.S., which Lightspeed ended up backing and later sold to Facebook for $400 million). Before that, he held several roles at Microsoft in the U.S., UK and India. He also holds a BS in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech and an MBA from The IE Business School in Spain, according to the Northzone website.

Meanwhile, the fact that Lightspeed is formerly putting more people on the ground in Europe should come as no surprise to close watchers of the ecosystem here. TechCrunch first heard rumours that the Menlo Park-based VC was recruiting a partner in London as far back as August in 2019. That saw Rytis Vitkauskas join the U.S. as its first partner in London the following September, according to LinkedIn. Should Murphy’s recruitment be confirmed it would signal a significant expansion of a Lightspeed London “office,” and confirmation that the VC is doubling down in the region.

Those rumours in late last 2019 coincided with news spreading that another Silicon Valley VC heavyweight, Sequoia, was also doing the same — along with talk of other U.S. VC firms — as European tech companies continue to create more value than ever before. Sequoia’s own plans were finally announced in November, including that it had poached Luciana Lixandru away from rival Accel Partners.

7 things we just learned about Sequoia’s European expansion plans

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio
Post a Comment
Read more

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line
Post a Comment
Read more

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted and monito
3 comments
Read more