Moving to Boston !

Over the summer I will be moving over to Boston to join my partners there.  I found a house in Brookline which I am hoping will be a great place to raise all three of my kiddo's and for my wife to find her next gig.  The garden is big enough to do nice dinosaur hunts (a favourite with my son),which was their main concern, so they've OK-ed the move.   Only downside: I will now have to live in the shadow of Fred and just be ... the Other Fred ? EuroFred ? :-)

The Rationale

As a team, we made a decision that it was time for us to be all in one location.  The logic behind is quite simple; we operate at our best as a unit when we can take decisions fast, sit around the table together and act as unit of one.  We are an early stage firm; for us, small is beautiful.   We will also look at adding a Partner on the tech side.

Euro Blues ?

I have been asked a few times whether this reflected a negative view on the Euro venture market.  The answer is quite simply no.  We will continue to invest in Europe.  In our current portfolio, we have some great gems developing.  Companies I am involved with on the digital media / e-commerce side include Seatwave, Zoopla, PriceMinister or DailyMotion.  On the SaaS front, NTR and KDS.  These are all strong opportunities that I believe will drive good returns.  

We also sold Novexel for over $500M in December, a nice Christmas present from our Life Sciences team.

Our house view (and my personal view) is that Europe continues to be relatively under-banked market with increasingly strong opportunities to make real returns happen.  I am sure the next two years will present their shares of large and compelling exits.  Building an ecosystem takes time, ours is improving daily.

The Investing Tech Team

• Axel Bichara
• Jeff Fagnan
• Me
• One TBH

Onward !

Covered elsewhere:

PEHub

PaidContent

xconomy

Techcrunch

Comments

[twitter.com/Tedesign]

Had to happen. I would only regret that the move didn't happen the other way from US to EU.

Best of luck for your new ventures and keep us in the loop.

Btw, if you want great deals here, you know who to call ;)

[Alexksso]

Sounds exciting - Boston is an amazing place to be ! We'll be missing you in old Europe

[Fred Oliveira]

Exciting move, Fred. From an entrepreneurial perspective (and I'm quite sure you get these frequently), Europe is still an odd place to have ideas and start businesses - entrepreneurs are scattered between countries, meaning there's no unified set of laws to set businesses on, there's only a couple of real innovation hot spots, and while there are fantastic ideas popping out every now and then, there isn't a real ecosystem that keeps churning them day in and day out.

It's sad to see you go, even though you're still investing in Europe. We need people like you coming over, not leaving ;-) I'd love to pick your brain one of these days about a service - and to generally chat about the US/Europe dichotomy.

Anyway, I digress. Best of luck on the move! Enjoy Boston.

[Gabriel Gunderson]

When I first read this, I read "dinosaur HUTS." My kids are into making forts/huts. I thought that maybe your son took it to the next level.

A dinosaur HUNT makes more sense :)

Enjoy your move. Hope you things work out and that your son takes his limit this season.

[rüya tabirleri]

Sounds exciting - Boston is an amazing place to be ! We'll be missing you in old Europe

[DavidSmuts]

This is simply not allowed Fred! Europe needs you! I'm sure Boston does too, but you will leave a gap here in terms of being an open-source VC leader in Europe.

Boston and its Entrepreneurs will benefit. Let's hope you can maintain the transatlantic links. Boston's not that far away, (at least your not going West Coast).

Go get em

[twitter.com/AAinslie]

Bon chance, Fred!

[seda Avsar]

Hı
My name ıs Seda and I lıve ın Turkey ıam lookıng for ınvesters partners to buıld up the project that I have
who can help us wıth thıs or can gıve some advıce how to and where to apply for fınance.

thank you
Seda