Index Ventures

Index Ventures has its origins in a Swiss bond-trading firm called Index Securities, founded by Gerald Rimer in 1976.[7][8] In 1992, Rimer recruited his son, Neil, to join the firm and together they launched its technology investment arm, which would evolve into an independent entity, Index Ventures.[8][9][10]

Index Ventures was officially founded in 1996 by Neil Rimer, David Rimer and Giuseppe Zocco,[11] when they raised a pilot fund of $17 million, followed by a $180 million fund in 1998.[8] That year the firm also launched its life sciences practice, which in 2016 launched as an independent venture capital firm, Medicxi Ventures.[12][13] Index Ventures' dual headquarters in San Francisco and London were opened in 2011 and 2002, respectively.[14][15]

The firm's nine investment partners are Sarah Cannon,[16][17] Mark Goldberg,[18][16] Jan Hammer,[19] Martin Mignot, Danny Rimer, Neil Rimer, Shardul Shah,[20] Dominique Vidal, and Mike Volpi. The firm also has an operating partner, Bernard Dalle.[21]

Danny Rimer has been named to Fortune's "40 under 40" list of the top rising stars in business,[22] Forbes' Midas List of the top 25 deal makers in venture capital,[23] and the New York Times' list of the top 20 venture capitalists worldwide each year since its inception (2016–2018).[24][25][26]

Neil Rimer was named the number one venture capitalist in Europe in Forbes' inaugural Midas List Europe 2017.[27]

The 2018 Forbes' Global Midas List of the world's top venture capitalists featured Neil Rimer and Jan Hammer,[28] and the 2018 New York Times list of the top venture capitalists worldwide featured four Index partners: Danny Rimer (number 17), Mike Volpi (number 34), Neil Rimer, and Jan Hammer.[26]

Index Ventures has raised a number of venture funds, including Index Ventures I through VIII[29][30] and Index Growth 1, 2 and 3.[31][32][33] In 2018 the firm raised a total of $1.65 billion for an early-stage investment fund and a growth fund.[18][34]

The firm's notable exits include:

• Betfair, now Flutter Entertainment[35][36]
• Bird Company [37][38]
• Blue Bottle Coffee (acquired by Nestlé for $425 million)[39][40]
• Criteo[41]
• CodeAcademy [42]
• Dropbox[43][44]
• Duo Security (being acquired by Cisco for $2.35 billion)[45][46]
• Etsy[41]
• Facebook[47]
• IZettle (acquired by PayPal for $2.2bn)[48]
• Just Eat[41]
• King (held an initial public offering, subsequently acquired by Activision Blizzard for $5.9 billion)[49][41]
• Last.fm (acquired by CBS for $280 million)[50]
• Moleskin[51]
• MySQL (acquired by Sun Microsystems, now part of Oracle, for $1 billion)[52]
• Plaid (acquired by Visa for $5.3B) [53]
• Skype (acquired by eBay for $2.6 billion[54] and later acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion).[55]
• Sonos[45][3]
• Supercell (acquired by Tencent for $8.6 billion)[56][57]
• Trello (acquired by Atlassian for $425 million)[58]
• Zendesk[41]
• Zuora[27][59]

Other notable investments include Adyen,[43] Aurora,[60] Deliveroo,[43] Farfetch,[43] Funding Circle,[43] Intercom,[61] Patreon,[62] Revolut,[63] Robinhood,[27] Roblox,[64] Ubiquity6,[65] Gatsby,[66] Notion [67] and Slack.[68]

In 2018, Index launched the Index Ventures summer fellowship to support innovative student entrepreneurs. The program provided free office space, guest speakers, and mentorship with the partners at Index. Notable participants of the first batch include Akshay Ramaswamy and Chetan Rane, co-founders of Alma Campus, and Akbar Khan, co-founder of Dough.

• "Index Ventures Has Been on a Run. Now It’s Raising Funds to Keep It Up.", The New York Times, July 9, 2018.
• "One investing firm is behind a string of this year’s big money-making moments in Silicon Valley", recode, August 5, 2018.

• Index Ventures (company website)