{"id":342854,"date":"2017-06-06T16:31:40","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T08:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1499251"},"modified":"2017-06-06T16:31:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T08:31:40","slug":"localglobe-goes-beyond-the-klein-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/localglobe-goes-beyond-the-klein-brand\/","title":{"rendered":"LocalGlobe goes \u2018beyond the Klein brand\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tileyard Studios is a nondescript and fairly hidden studio complex in London\u2019s Kings Cross area. A microcosm of the creative industries the U.K. capital city is partly known for, it houses over one hundred companies spanning film and television, music, fashion, and \u201ccreative tech\u201d. During the last 18 months, it has also been the home to LocalGlobe<\/a>, the seed-stage venture capital firm founded by father and son duo Robin and Saul Klein, and one of the most active in the country.<\/p>\n

Since May 2015 alone, LocalGlobe has backed 45 startups, seeing \u00a327 million invested in 38 companies in the U.K., with the majority in London. They cover multiple sectors<\/a> including the creative industries, education, energy, fashion, finance, food, health, insurance, property, travel and transport. If there is an industry being impacted by tech, LocalGlobe has probably already left fingerprints on it.<\/p>\n

At the invitation of Saul Klein, I\u2019m here to interview him, his father and four other members of the now eight-person LocalGlobe team, none of whom I have met previously despite being one of the journalists who has covered the firm\u2019s investments the most in recent years. Based on my own sources, I planned to break news of a new \u00a375 million fund LocalGlobe closed late last year, but Klein had other ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a story that interests us,\u201d he told me unambiguously when I called him for comment last month. He proposed instead that I visit LocalGlobe to meet with the team and find out what the VC firm is all about for myself. You could say that I blinked first.<\/p>\n

The destination for our meeting is actually a few units further down from the LocalGlobe offices, which are up a flight of stairs and not wheelchair accessible to this journalist. The room is modestly furnished with a three-seater sofa, a coffee table, a few surrounding chairs, and two round desks. The musician in me is slightly distracted by (and drawn to) the upright piano in the corner, whilst the only sign of nearby startup life is a rather lonely looking foosball table in the centre of the room.<\/p>\n

In addition to the two Kleins, also present are LocalGlobe Partners Suzanne Ashman Blair, who has a background in impact investing; Tara Reeves, who was previously Head of Product at Wonga and co-founded peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace Turo; and George Henry, who worked in venture support at Index. We are joined too by Emma Phillips, Operations Director at LocalGlobe who leads the support provided to portfolio companies post-investment.<\/p>\n

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We\u2019re really trying to build something here that is not about one or two individuals<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Saul Klein<\/span><\/div>\n

Faced with the unwieldy prospect of interviewing six people at the same time, and determined to wrest back control of the story, I suggest that doing a piece on how LocalGlobe is all about the team could be quite bland. \u201cWe\u2019re really trying to build something here that is not about one or two individuals, it really is about the team,\u201d counters Saul Klein. \u201cIt probably will sound bland until people actually \u2014 which we\u2019re hoping today is the beginning of \u2014 take the time to meet the people and hear why we think it means something. It\u2019s not just words on a page\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we wanted to do was build something to last. This is the vision that Saul and I have,\u201d says Robin Klein. \u201cWhen we left Index, it was, \u2018let\u2019s build something that isn\u2019t just about making some investments and hopefully helping some great companies emerge, but let\u2019s build something that is going to last and is enduring beyond me, beyond Saul,\u2019 and so on. An institution, if you like, in its own right, in our peculiar way\u201d.<\/p>\n

Partner George Henry frames it as \u201cgoing beyond the Klein brand\u201d. The French-speaking Belgian worked closely with both Kleins at Index Ventures and says it felt like a very natural move to follow them to LocalGlobe. \u201cI think I was honest as well that I wasn\u2019t joining the family office, I was joining a new institution,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

As a burgeoning institution, it isn\u2019t immediately clear what makes LocalGlobe unusual or peculiar, although a number of things do stand out. The team is \u201cmultigenerational,\u201d notes 69 year-old Robin Klein, with Saul Klein in his forties and the other members of the team in their thirties and younger. The firm has also been extremely active over the last year, making an average of two investments per month, something that is attributed to the quality of the companies LocalGlobe is now seeing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entrepreneurs and their ambition are at a level where we feel very, very comfortable with these companies trying to build very big outcomes, and historically, as you know, because you\u2019ve been covering the space for a very long time, that hasn\u2019t always been the case in the U.K. and Europe,\u201d says Saul Klein.<\/p>\n