Atomico, the Europe-born investment firm, today announced a number of fresh 'Entrepreneur Partners', 'Entrepreneurs-In-Residence' and 'Executives-In-Residence' from and in around the world.
The new 'Entrepreneur Partners' are Brent Hoberman (co-founder of Lastminute.com, Made.com and Founders Forum), Ilkka Paananen and Mikko Kodisoja (co-founders of Supercell) and Alex Asseily (co-founder of Jawbone and State). In case you missed it, just a few weeks ago we reported on Hoberman's decision to leave PROfounders, the VC firm he co-founded, and other shifts of focus.
I can't pretend to fully understand what the role 'Entrepreneur Partner' entails exactly, so I'll just copy-paste the relevant bit from the announcement here:
"We'll share our expertise in value creation and investments, while they will provide their own insights on sourcing and sectors to watch. Whilst remaining fully committed to their own businesses, our Entrepreneur Partners will also support the founders of our portfolio companies, drawing on the their own experience of growing and scaling their own successful companies."
It does sound like the new partners will source and directly make investments in startups out of Atomico's fund, but as it's not explicitly stated, we'll ask Atomico to confirm this.
The FT reports it thusly: "They will invest in Atomico’s portfolio companies and source their own start-ups for the firm to back alongside them."
And here's an additional statement from an Atomico spokesperson for clarification:
"The EPs will refer potential investments to us and they will also have the opportunity to co-invest in our portfolio and funds. We will bring them into deals where they have a particular sector expertise and value add. For the EPs, Atomico will provide investment infrastructure, support, and access to our value creation team to scale their own investment activity."
As for Atomico's new EIRs, they are:
"Niall Wass (former Senior VP EMEA and APAC, Uber Technologies) Jason Goodman (Founder, Albion), Ernesto Schmitt (Co-founder, Beamly) and Alexis Dormandy (Former CMO, Orange) in London, Sophia Bendz (former Global Director of Marketing, Spotify) in Stockholm and, Carter Adamson (Co-Founder, Rdio) in New York."
Atomico was co-founded by Niklas Zennström, who famously founded Skype and Kazaa, and was just named tech.eu's 'Person of the Year' for 2015 for his continued contributions to the European tech scene. The firm has invested in the likes of 6Wunderkinder (acquired by Microsoft), Klarna, GoEuro, Rovio, Uniplaces, Hailo and Fon.
**Also read:**
tech.eu names Niklas Zennström ‘Person of the Year’ for 2015
Atomico has researched the size of the late-stage funding gap in Europe (and the opportunity ahead)
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