I've suggested before that Index Ventures could well be the "best venture firm in Europe." Index has one of the most interesting investment portfolios of any venture firm on the planet, having invested in companies like Skype, Openads, Oanda, DimDim, and others.
Mike Volpi, Index Ventures new Partner
Today, Index became even more interesting, adding Michelangelo ("Mike") Volpi to its investment team as a partner based in London. Volpi was most recently the CEO of online video company Joost, but made his name as the mergers and acquisitions maestro at Cisco, where he oversaw 75 acquisitions.
Given Volpi's background as a deal-maker, the question is whether he's going to be investing for Index or selling for Index.
The answer is "both," of course, and Volpi's recent failure with Joost should prove useful instruction for his future Index investments, as suggested in an interview with D: All Things Digital. Look for Volpi to take a hard-headed view on Internet business models: less advertising, and more transactional business models.
Index was already a leading light in the global venture investment constellation. Adding Volpi should make it even better.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
As is often the case with "news," the most interesting story is in the subtext. As an example, DimDim, the open-source web conferencing company, just raised $6 million in a Series B round of financing. That's great news for DimDim, but it's not the most important news. (Though I'm sure DimDim employees will beg to differ. :-)
No, the most important news is who funded this round. Index Ventures.
For those who don't follow the open-source world very closely, Index has funded some of the world's best open-source companies, many funded by Danny Rimer, open-source rock star. Its portfolio is filled with MySQL, Zend, OpenX, and Pentaho, among others.
Getting money from Index says a lot about DimDim. It has a lot of experience investing in open source. Index doesn't suffer open-source fools easily. DimDim just got a big vote of confidence...along with the cash.
- prev
- 1
- next
