VC Firm Lightspeed Expands In Europe By Hiring Partners In Paris And Berlin

Lightspeed Venture Partners has expanded its European team with new hires in Paris and Berlin. The move to hire Antoine Moyroud and Alexander Schmitt marks Lightspeed as one of the first Silicon Valley funds with a full time presence on the European continent.

Their hiring follows the Menlo Park-based investor opening a London base in September 2021, following a string of major American venture capital firms like Sequoia, Coatue, and Iconiq opening offices in London in recent years to capitalize on a boom in investment in British and European startups. VC funds committed $105 billion in the U.K. and Europe last year alone, according to Pitchbook.

Paul Murphy, the Lightspeed partner who heads up the firm’s London office, believes that having partners in France and Germany will give the firm an advantage at identifying early stage companies. “To do the early stuff properly you need to be on the ground,” Murphy says. “If you want to invest from the U.S. or London, you are not going to see the best Series A companies, and at the seed stage you need to know all the founders and when they will start their new company.”

Lightspeed’s investment into Europe comes at an uncertain time, with turbulent public markets, inflation and interest rates weighing on startup valuations, combined with a looming energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine. “The momentum of the European startup ecosystem will overpower those headwinds and I think it might appear that Europe moves more quickly than the U.S. because for so long there has been that built up demand from companies and founders,” Murphy says.

Moyroud, who is based in Paris, joins Lightspeed from the venture arm of Swedish private equity giant EQT. He previously worked at German transport brand FlixBus, which acquired Greyhound Lines in 2021, and French AI startup Dataiku. Berlin-based Schmitt worked with German seed investors Cherry Ventures on fintech and business to business investments, and ran his own startup Mergerspot, before joining Lightspeed.

Moyroud and Schmitt will join Lightspeed’s other Europe-based investors, including Murphy, Ross Mason, Adrian Radu, and Nicole Quinn, who splits her time between Palo Alto and London. A long-serving member of the Lightspeed team in London, Rytis Vitkauskas, stepped down in August.

Lightspeed announced in July 2021 it had raised $7.1 billion for new investment with the launch of specialist funds focused on India and the blockchain. The VC fund carved out a reputation for investments in enterprise software from its Sand Hill Road base, but over the last decade it has shifted focus to big consumer bets like Snap, Cameo and Goop, and international investments with partners now based in China, India, Israel and Singapore.