Neil Rimer, Index Ventures: Diversity is Always a Benefit

Video interview with Neil Rimer.  Neil  is a co-founder and Partner of Index Ventures. In 1992, Neil started the venture capital activity of Index’s predecessor firm, later co-founding Index Ventures and raising the firm’s first fund in 1996. Neil’s current investment focus is on innovative solutions for energy and environmental problems.  Index portfolio companies with women ceos or foundees:Astley Clarke, Notonthehighstreet, AlertMe, Foodily, doubleTwist, 7TM, GoTryItOn, Editd (co-founder), Mobissimo, Net-a-Porter, Songkick (co-founder), Seedcamp, GenMab. In 2009, Index were honored by Astia with a Diversified Portfolio Award – The firm with the greatest percentage of investments in woman CEOs or founders.  You can find Neil on Twitter @narimer

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Herve Lebret: Difference in European & US Venture Capitalists

Video interview with Hervé Lebret.  Hervé manages the Innogrants @ EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), a program supporting startup creation. The program includes grants to entrepreneurs and conferences where role models share their entrepreneurial experience with students and researchers. From 1997 to 2004, he was with Index Ventures, the pan-European venture capital firm which invested in Skype, mysql, Virata, Addex, Genmab. He began his career in academia in electrical engineering and applied mathematics at ENSTA and ONERA (Paris). He is also the author of the book “Start-Up, what we may still learn from Silicon Valley” . Hervé Lebret is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) and Stanford University. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Université de Rennes. You can find Herve @ his blog & on Twitter @hlebret

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Fred Destin, Atlas Ventures: Venture Success Part II

Video interview with Fred Destin, Atlas Ventures.  Fred joined Atlas in 2004 and is a Partner in the technology group. He focuses on software and technology-enabled services and digital media infrastructure and applications.  He currently serves on the boards of Atlas portfolio companies AdSafe, Dailymotion, Inspirational Stores, KDS International, NTRglobal, PriceMinister, RealEyes3D, Seatwave, Sporever, and Zoopla. He also served on the board of Seedcamp, which provides mentoring and seed funding to European start-ups.  Fred holds a Masters in Financial Engineering from the University of Brussels (Solvay). You can find Fred @ his blog Fred Destin and Twitter @fdestin

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