AAA Iris Capital goes for Gold

Iris Capital goes for Gold

Bernhard Gold has left T-Venture, a corporate venturing subsidiary of telecommunications firm Deutsche Telekom, to join France-headquartered venture capital firm Iris Capital as managing director of its North American office.

Gold has been appointed partner at Iris and will run Iris Capital North America. He had been managing director of T-Venture of America since early 2014, having been promoted after three years as an investment director.

During his stint in the US, Gold oversaw investments in companies including Cooliris, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2014, and Ruckus Wireless, which floated in 2012. Prior to working at its US branch, Gold was a senior investment manager at Germany-based T-Venture between 2007 and 2010.

Deutsche Telekom decided in late 2014 to wind down T-Venture in favour of a new unit called Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and T-Venture now only makes follow-on investments in its portfolio companies.

Antoine Garrigues and Pierre de Fouquet, co-founders and managing partners of Iris Capital, said in a statement: “We are extremely pleased that Bernhard is joining the Iris Capital team as partner in San Francisco.

“His intimate knowledge of the Silicon Valley ecosystem and his great experience at a leading corporate venture capital firm are valuable assets which undeniably got us convinced.”

Iris is sponsored by telecoms company Orange and public relations firm Publicis Groupe. It also manages STC Ventures, the corporate venturing vehicle of telecoms firm Saudi Telecom Company.

– Photo of Bernhard Gold courtesy of LinkedIn

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