{"id":337343,"date":"2017-03-31T23:59:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T15:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1471373"},"modified":"2017-03-31T23:59:05","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T15:59:05","slug":"gvs-tom-hulme-on-ai-life-sciences-and-the-alphabet-vcs-future-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/gvs-tom-hulme-on-ai-life-sciences-and-the-alphabet-vcs-future-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"GV\u2019s Tom Hulme on AI, life sciences and the Alphabet VC\u2019s future in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

GV<\/a> \u2014 the VC owned by Google\u2019s Alphabet and formerly known as Google Ventures \u2014 has had a few ups and downs in Europe\u00a0since first setting up its stall here in London in\u00a02014<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It initially stormed\u00a0into\u00a0the market with $125 million to invest in its first year, along with four permanent partners (Tom Hulme, Avid Larizadeh Duggan, Eze Vidra and Peter Read) and one temporarily seconded from Mountain View (MG Siegler).\u00a0But then things began to shift both at the firm and outside it.<\/p>\n

While observers\u00a0highlighted\u00a0the slow pace<\/a> it was taking on investments \u2014 only six deals\u00a0in a year and a half \u2014 the organization itself was in flux. The number of investing partners in London whittled down to two \u2014 Hulme and Larizadeh Duggan \u2014 and GV Europe\u2019s\u00a0separate fund was combined<\/a> with that of\u00a0GV\u2019s in Mountain View. Adding in\u00a0the Brexit referendum crashing\u00a0the British pound, and then the\u00a0management of GV changing<\/a>, perhaps unsurprisingly things went quiet for a while over at GV\u00a0Europe.<\/p>\n

\"\"Fast-forward to today, however, and GV is still here and appears to be gearing up to be more visible and active in the future, according to an interview I had with Hulme earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Part of GV\u2019s\u00a0mandate and investment activities\u00a0will be to fill out\u00a0the priorities that GV \u2014 along with the rest of\u00a0the VC world \u2014 is\u00a0focusing on right now, such as technologies around artificial intelligence and deep learning; virtual and augmented reality and the next generation of cars; along with more traditional areas like enterprise, consumer apps and platform and developer tools.<\/p>\n

Notably, there have been almost no investments from GV in these areas in Europe or Israel yet, although there are plenty of interesting startups\u00a0working across all of them. And GV is interested: Hulme said that they\u2019ve met with \u201c60 or 70\u201d AI startups. So similar to\u00a0a pent-up geyser, there may be something shooting out soon. If the price is right, that is: Hulme tells us that for now,\u00a0the\u00a0right cost-versus-value mix hasn\u2019t been met.<\/p>\n

And part of GV\u2019s mandate in Europe will be to build on what\u2019s already strong and looking especially bright here at the moment, such as\u00a0fintech and life sciences. GV in Europe already has more investments proportionately in both areas than does GV globally. The most recent, in a vaccine \u201csuperglue\u201d startup called SpyBiotech<\/a>, was made earlier this week.<\/p>\n

GV has been fairly quiet about its European business up to now, so if you\u2019re interested in what it\u2019s doing and where it might be going, you can read the interview with Hulme below, which has been edited for clarity and length.<\/p>\n

TC: Okay let\u2019s start with a\u00a0basic question: Why has GV been pretty quiet about what it\u2019s setting out to do in Europe?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TH: If\u00a0I think about when we first set up the London office, we\u00a0made a decision not to talk through the strategy\u00a0too openly. We were very careful not to be arrogant and tell the market what we were doing. Instead, we wanted the investments to speak for themselves, to build the brand and franchise locally. I think we\u2019ve started to do that. In the last few months we\u2019ve made four investments [including Currencycloud<\/a> and SpyBiotech]. They represent what we stand for pretty well. About half our investments here are life sciences, the rest are consumer stuff and some developer tools.<\/p>\n

TC: Why did you start out as a separate fund and then decide to combine the operations?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TH: In many ways, it was about us still learning about the market. What struck me as an incredible vote of confidence was that\u00a0some of the deals that I led, the U.S. team chose to co-invest in them. It meant that the U.S. team believed in the opportunities in Europe, and given that this was happening so often, we decided to merge the funds. It\u2019s a case of just finding the fit and understanding. Given\u00a0that we managed to keep the pace of investing through all of that, I would imagine\u00a0it picking\u00a0up again this year and\u00a0next year.<\/p>\n

TC: Picking up with just the two of you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TH: Yes, with just the two of us. We might increase the team over time, but it feels about the right size at the moment. Plus, we\u00a0bolster the team with all the operational support.<\/p>\n

TC: The\u00a0investing landscape is pretty competitive in Europe right now, with some\u00a0much larger organizations, and some that are very Europe-first in their outlook. How does that impact your ability to get in on the good deals?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TH: We\u2019ve done a pretty good job of getting into the deals that we\u2019ve wanted to get into. The question I constantly ask myself is how we differentiate from the other providers of capital.\u00a0In a low-interest environment, I\u2019d expect the number of funds out there to increase, not decrease. It feels a bit competitive now, and I would expect from Series A and seed it will become even more competitive. But that\u2019s good news. The question now is how do we differentiate.<\/p>\n

I think there are three things. The first is probably the least interesting but Avid and I both built businesses so we\u2019d hope that we would be empathetic to entrepreneurs and help them think through the challenges as they grow. The second is that we have a support team at GV to help with the portfolio, which certainly others don\u2019t do in Europe, covering engineering, design, marketing and other facets. And the third is that we\u2019ll help with access to Google.<\/p>\n