Hoxton Ventures

Hoxton Ventures is a European venture capital firm, based in London. It was launched by American partners Hussein Kanji and Rob Kniaz in December 2013 after previously working at and Fidelity Ventures (now Eight Roads Ventures) respectively. Hoxton also has a venture partner Dylan Collins with a particular focus on gaming and Irish investments from his former career at Demonware; he is now CEO at Superawesome, a kids technology company.
The partnership is especially focused on connectivity to Silicon Valley and the partners are among the few European venture capitalists who are also computer scientists.
It has also been recognized for having three investments become valued over $1b as "unicorns", an high number for a European venture firm. The partnership is often cited on compilations of top European VCs such as Business Insider's top investor lists in 2019 and 2019.
Focus
The company focuses on startups inventing new market categories or transforming large, existing industries. The firm invests in internet, mobile and software startups, most often as the first institutional investor in the company following angel investors. Typically these investments focus early on the American market and derive a large portion of their revenue from that market ahead of others.
Activities
Hoxton Ventures has raised two venture funds to date. Fund I was a $40m fund begun in 2013 and a Fund II was formed in 2019.
Hoxton focuses on startups inventing new market categories or transforming large industries, including software as a service (SaaS) companies, business-to-business (B2B), enterprise, cloud-based, consumer (B2C) and other fast-growing software-led technology companies. The firm invests primarily in Europe. The firm invests primarily at the Series A stage with checks ranging from $1 to $5m.
The fund is backed by institutional investors, family offices and high net worth individuals, including several early Google engineers and executives.
Controversy
Hoxton also among the funds such as Seedcamp named as having European Investment Fund support withdrawn due to Brexit concerns by the EU.
Investments
Hoxton has invested in over 19 companies as of July 2019. Most noteworthy, the firm is one of the few VC funds to invest in the first round of three "unicorn" investments, Deliveroo (valued at £1.5bn in 2017), Darktrace (the Cambridge-based cybersecurity firm valued at $1.5bn in 2018), and Babylon Health.
Other investments include Adazza, Algomi, Behavox, Optimoroute, Raptor Supplies, SuperAwesome, TourRadar, and Yieldify.
Exited investments include:
* bd4Travel (acquired by DNATA)
* Campanja (acquired by 24/7 Media)
* Immunio (acquired by Trend Micro)
* Mavrx (acquired by Taranis)
Portfolio companies have received follow on investment from larger funds such as Index Ventures, Accel Partners, Summit Partners, Insight, KKR, GV, Shasta Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Softbank, and Citibank.
Media Coverage
In particular, the partners of the firm regularly provide commentary on television and radio on technology in Europe and on Brexit and its effect on the European startup community. Interviews include slots on broadcasts of BBC News and Radio 4, the Financial Times and The Economist. The firm's activity in Ireland was cited in the Sunday Business Post with Collins.
Kniaz appears regularly on BBC television and radio on various programmes discussing the day's technology news and Kanji is also seen on CNBC similarly.

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