Gaule: Describe the purpose of your venture, when it was formed and how it operates.
Askew: Reed Elsevier Ventures is a venture capital (VC) firm with offices in London and San Francisco. Founded in 2000, we are the venture arm of one of the world’s most successful media and information companies. Our mission is to invest in entrepreneurs and management teams that have the vision to build great companies. We take an active role in the development of our companies and help our entrepreneurs to build value via our extensive network of industry contacts and business relationships. The fund focus is high-growth technology, internet and media companies based in the US, Europe or Israel. Our sectors include big data and analytics, new media and mobile, healthcare information and software, and ground-breaking analytic technologies. We will invest at any stage of a company’s development, from early and seed stage to growth capital.
Gaule: Your fund is separate, with Reed Elsevier a 100% limited partner (LP – investor). Explain the process of determining investment, and the governance of these decisions.
Askew: Our process is a traditional VC process with all diligence, except legal, being conducted by Reed Elsevier Ventures. The decision to invest is taken by the investment committee which includes the two partners, Kevin Brown and myself, and Reed Elsevier’s chief financial and chief strategy officers. We typically take full board seats and all post-investment management decisions are taken by the partner who has the board seat. All shareholder decisions are taken by Reed Elsevier Ventures partners.
Gaule: How has the venture unit changed over the years?
Askew: Our investment focus has not changed much. One of our strengths is longevity – the team has been together since we founded Reed Elsevier Ventures, making us one of the longest-serving teams in the venture industry.
Gaule: Outline the strategic and financial benefit you bring to your core business.
Askew: We provide a lens on the disruption taking place in the media and technology industry, which has transformed Reed Elsevier’s markets more in the past 10 years than in the preceding 400 and continues to evolve at a fantastic pace. We are able to bring a unique view of markets drawing from both the large company view and the high-growth, fast-paced, dynamic world of the start-ups. Our portfolio includes more than 30 high-growth media, information and technology companies across 10 time zones and including each of the major venture capital ecosystems – Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Seattle, Tel Aviv, Berlin and London. Our portfolio includes Palantir, one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the US, and Babylon, the world’s most downloaded translation tool.
Gaule: How do you see the corporate venturing and VC environment changing?
Askew: Corporate venturing is becoming more important to the funding landscape. Traditional VC firms are finding it harder to raise capital from LPs, which is leaving more room for corporate venturers. Also there are many corporate venturers who, like us, have been around for more than 10 years, which brings credibility to corporate venturing and serious long-term investors to the overall VC market.
Gaule: Give a brief overview of the people in the team and the partners you work with.
Askew: The team consists of five people. I have over 20 years’ experience of building and financing digital media and technology businesses, and I was a founding partner. Kevin Brown has been involved in early-stage technology and venture capital since the late 1990s and was also a founding partner. Tom Drummond, investment principal, is based in San Francisco, Luke Smith, investment analyst, and Kate Holdbrook, executive assistant are in London.
Gaule: What is your view of market conditions for starting a new venture?
Askew: The timing is great. There are a lot of highly experienced angel investors and early-stage seed funds looking for opportunities, especially in the US.
You can get free previous audios of Gaule’s Question Time at the iTunes store – search Corven Group – and as audio downloads from Global Corporate Venturing or from www. corven.com/corven-networks.
To contact Andrew Gaule and for future interview ideas email andrew.gaule@corven.com and tlewis@globalcorporateventuring.com