I am excited to announce I have joined AXA Strategic Ventures to build a growth capital business together with my colleagues Alex Scherbakovsky in San Francisco and Francois Robinet in Paris. With Manish Agarwal in New York and Minh Tran in Paris leading the early stage investing together we will make equity investments up to €15m across Europe, North America and the Middle East.

The rate at which startups with technological and business innovations can overturn mature industries or create new ones is accelerating and for established companies this can be a threat or an opportunity. In three years Hakan Koc and Christian Bertermann took Auto1 group (Wirkaufendeinauto) from nothing to over a billion of revenue, rivalling decades old companies like British Car Auctions and Mannheim. Similarly, Quandoo under Philipp Magin and Wahanda (Treatwell) under Lopo Champalimaud transformed the way consumers interact with local restaurants and beauty salons in over 20 countries within a few years.

Over many conversations it has become clear that the team at AXA see the opportunity in such changes and I’m excited to be working with them. Our investment focus will be on sectors relevant to the insurance and asset management industries such as enterprise technologies, fintech as well as consumer technologies and marketplaces in travel, health, auto or property related businesses. The ASV Partners will run the fund and investment decision making but we will be able to draw on the expertise of 160,000 AXA employees across 56 countries as we work to support our portfolio companies!

Finally, we are looking for great analysts and associates In London and San Francisco so if you know anyone please do let me know!

See here for the press release