Tony Askew, is one of three founders of, and now runs, Reed Elsevier Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the Anglo-Dutch publisher.
He has recently become the first chairman of the corporate venturing group of UK trade body the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA), which is looking to broaden its approach to take account of the impact that corporates can have on venture capital in the UK and across Europe and under Askew’s aegis has one of the country’s most successful investors to provide guidance.
Askew and his co-partner Kevin Brown moved to Reed Elsevier Ventures at the end of 2000, along with his predecessor as head, Diane Noble, who is now chief executive of UK governmentbacked emerging markets investor Commonwealth Development Corporation.
Askew said: “We found a welcoming home here, as Reed Elsevier wanted us to create a successful, long-term corporate venturing capability. We designed the fund as a financial VC but with a meaningful strategic angle.
“The financial focus means we take board seats and our compensation includes carried interest [a share of investment profit], like traditional VCs, which aligns us well with entrepreneurs and other investors.
“Our strategic angle comes from bringing to bear Reed Elsevier’s superior access to domain knowledge and a highly relevant referral network”.
Twelve years on it has witnessed two changes of chief executive and three chairmen.
Askew first became a venture capitalist at Softbank, a Japan-based internet company, after working as a corporate and an entrepreneur. He said: “Back in the early days of the cauldron of the internet bubble I was persuaded it would be far more interesting to apply what I had learnt in building digital businesses by becoming a VC and so I joined Softbank.”
Askew said: “I graduated as a physicist, so I did what all physicists do in the UK and joined a management consultancy.”
Other past activities included running electronic publishing for Random House, which included co-investing in a Los Angeles-based new media company alongside film maker Stephen Spielberg.
Later at mobile operator Cellnet, now O2, he co-developed and launched the world’s first wireless internet service provider, Genie, which grew quickly to 4 million users across Europe.”
Reed Elsevier Ventures was an early investor in Palantir, a technology company which secured a $2.5bn valuation and $400m in annual revenues in 2011, according to news provider TechCrunch.
Askew is on the boards of Babylon, the world’s most downloaded translation tool used by 50 million people a day, First Life Research, PartMiner, Spacecurve and Tolven.
Lessons from the top: Askew advised: “One of the key challenges for corporates is understanding what is strategically possible when partnering early-stage companies. You have a size difference which is hard to overcome initially. So you need to pick an engagement model that is going both to fit the interests of the corporate and to be of added value to entrepreneurs, investors and the broader ecosystem.”