![]() ![]() Like most big US VCs, Lightspeed also has a full-platform offering - talent partners, marketing and PR guidance - and its team has a big network, promising introductions to expert operators all over the world. The driver is usually, what can I do on this platform? Can I find the best companies? Will they call because of the brand, or do I have to go out and hunt them all? Do I have the right resources in the fund to evaluate the deal and, if we win the deal, support the company?” The Lightspeed model “For senior hires coming in laterally, compensation is always important - but it’s never the driver. Murphy thinks it’s also about the platform a new firm will offer an investor. There’s also a concern that US firms might not be truly committed to Europe and might not stick around for the long term, and that working far from US HQ could throw up challenges. ![]() Sifted spoke to another VC who points out that as the European ecosystem is still young - and currently booming - many partners don’t want to leave their boards (or carry) behind at their current firms. So many great funds are searching for partners and the ecosystem is so small that it’s very hard - everybody has the same list of people,” says Carmen Rico, angel and founder at Cocoa. The driver is usually, what can I do on this platform? Can I find the best companies? Will they call because of the brand, or do I have to go out and hunt them all?įirms also need to be top of their game: it’s not just US VCs on the hunt for partners ( especially female partners) at the moment. “At Lightspeed, everyone is a partner - everyone is writing cheques and making decisions - so you need to be at the top of your game.” “Pre-2021 funds used to obsess about which startups to invest in - but that pales in comparison to which people they should bring into the fund. “It’s tricky - but I think it’s always been tricky,” says Murphy. Last month, another steal was announced: Reid Hoffman’s firm, Greylock, had landed DeepMind founder Mustafa Suleyman as its first European partner.īut these courtships tend to be long. Over the next few months, General Catalyst hired Chris Bischoff from Kinnevik, while Sapphire Ventures also continued growing its Europe team, promoting Annalise Dragic, formerly an investor at Atomico, to partner. And then Lightspeed poached Murphy from Northzone. And they haven’t just been looking for startups - they’ve also been looking for people.įirst, Sequoia snatched Luciana Lixandru from Accel to head up its London office. That’s one of the reasons we won that deal.” Hiring that teamĪmerican VCs have been on a shopping spree in Europe these past few years. Case in point: “We signed a deal last week which was very competitive - most European funds were competing on it and a handful of US funds too - but we’d started speaking to them in September, before they were thinking about raising money. If Murphy’s lucky, that means he’s already got to know a promising founder before they look to raise. ![]()
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