Robin Klein (venture capitalist)
| Robin Klein | |
|---|---|
| Born | Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Alma mater | University of the Witwatersrand |
| Occupation |
Partner at Index Ventures Founding Partner at The Accelerator Group (TAG) |
| Spouse(s) | Hanna Klein |
| Children | Saul Klein and Dr. Melanie Morris |
| Relatives | Jonathan Klein (brother), co-founder and CEO of Getty Images; Martin Klein |
Partner at Index Ventures
Robin Klein is a British entrepreneur and investor. He was until 2015 a venture partner at Index Ventures and co-founder of The Accelerator Group, an advisor and investor in early-stage companies.
Klein was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in December 1947. He received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, specialising in cybernetics, and a master of science degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, in 1969. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1976.
From 1991–1997, Klein was chairman and CEO of Innovations Group PLC, which conducted the first documented e-commerce transaction in the UK, in May 1995. Klein was managing director, marketing and home shopping, at Arcadia, from 1996–99. Klein started his investing career in earnest in 1998, co-founding The Accelerator Group (TAG), a vehicle for investing in early-stage internet services, e-commerce and digital media businesses, with his son, Saul Klein, an entrepreneur and also currently a partner at Index Ventures.
From 2010 to 2015 Klein was a Venture Partner at Index Ventures. He ran Index Seed, Index Ventures' seed fund, in partnership with TAG.
Klein has been an early-stage investor in a number of companies, including Agent Provocateur (acquired by private equity firm 3i for £60m), Lastminute.com (acquired by Travelocity for £577m,Last.fm (acquired by CBS for $280 million,Dopplr (acquired by Nokia),LoveFilm (acquired by Amazon for $317 million), Sit Up TV (acquired by Virgin Media), SlideShare (acquired by Linkedin for $119 million), Fizzback (acquired by Nice Systems for $80 million), Mashery (acquired by Intel for $180 million),TweetDeck (acquired by Twitter for $40 million – $50 million), and Twitterfeed (acquired by Bitly). Klein is involved with OpenCoffee Club, a group his son Saul Klein started in 2007 to facilitate gatherings and networking among entrepreneurs, developers and investors and is an advisor to Seedcamp which he helped to launch in 2007. Klein is currently chairman of the board at moo.com, an online printing company; MyBuilder, an online marketplace bringing together consumers, builders and tradesmen; and Wonga, a digital finance company, named the number one company in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100. Klein is also a board member of EDITD, Farfetch, FreeAgent, Onefinestay, Skimlinks, and Zoopla, an investor and board observer at TransferWise, and a non-executive director at Moneysupermarket.com(: ), and an investor in other companies.
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