Neil Rimer

Rimer was born in Montreal, Quebec, and reared and educated (International School of Geneva) in Geneva, Switzerland. He received a bachelor’s degree in History and Economics from Stanford University, and was a General Course student at the London School of Economics. He then took his first job out of school with Montgomery Securities, an investment bank in San Francisco. He then completed a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School, and upon graduating, chose to return to Europe.[4] He was later quoted by Fortune as reflecting on this move, “I was excited about the idea of participating in the birth of the VC industry in Europe”.[5]

Soon after his return to Geneva, in 1991, Rimer helped his father Gerald exit the bond trading business he had founded, and spent a few years connecting institutional investors with European technology startups, an effort that over time evolved into the official launch of Index Ventures.[5] In 1996 Rimer co-founded Index Ventures in Geneva with his brother, David, and Giuseppe Zocco,[6] helping raise Index’ first pilot fund of $17 million, followed by a $180 million fund in 1998.[5] Companies funded during this time include SCM Microsystems (now Identive)[5] and Virata, a chipmaker, which later entered into a $1.3 Billion merger with GlobeSpan.[7]

Notable investments Rimer has been involved with at Index Ventures in the years since include Betfair (LSE: BET) and Skype (acquired by eBay for $2.6 billion,[8][9] later acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion).[10]

Rimer has also invested in and served on the boards of directors of Last.fm (acquired by CBS for $280 million),[11] Ofoto (acquired by Kodak),[12] Trolltech (acquired by Nokia for $153 million),[13] Numerical Technologies (acquired by Synopsis for $250 million);[14] Genmab (Nasdaq Copenhagen: GEN);[6] and StepStone.[6] Rimer currently sits on the board of directors of a number of companies including Call9, Funding Circle, HouseTrip, MOO Print, PhotoBox, StackExchange,[6] Supercell,[15] Kaggle,[16] Metromile,[17] and The Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto for approximately $1.1 billion).[18]

Rimer headed the team at Index Ventures that led a $130 million funding round in Supercell, the subject of a May 6, 2013 Forbes article, “Is This the Fastest-Growing Game Company Ever?”[15] In October 2013 Softbank and GungHo Online Entertainment acquired 51% of Supercell for $1.53 billion.[19]

Rimer was named the number one venture capitalist in Europe in Forbes' inaugural Midas List Europe 2017.[20] He was also featured on the Forbes Global Midas list in 2018[21] and the 2018 New York Times list of the top venture capitalists worldwide.[22]

Rimer is a member of the board of directors of Human Rights Watch (HRW)[23] and is a founder of the Geneva Committee of HRW. He has also served on the European Leadership Council of Harvard Business School and on the board of U.C. Sampdoria, a football club competing in the Italian Serie A professional football league competition.[3]

• Index Ventures website
• Neil Rimer on Index Ventures blog
• Neil Rimer on Twitter
• Meet the man behind Europe’s hottest VC firm, in GigaOM (April 13, 2012)
• Neil Rimer Explains Index Ventures’ New Seed Program, in Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch (April 26, 2010)
• Europe’s start-up backer — Neil Rimer, founder, Index Ventures, in FT (November 28, 2016)