Creandum London, 6 months later: 8 people, 1 big community, and even more investments
When I first met the Creandum team in January 2021, it was clear that they were serious about putting deep roots in London. The ambition was to establish an equally large and important office to those in Stockholm and Berlin.
8 months in, I am proud to see that we are well on our way to accomplish this.
A phenomenal team
We are now 8 people, including 5 investors and 3 portfolio/ operations. In building a high performing team, it was important to us to combine the advantages of local hires with the benefits of shipping in Creandum superstars from other regions. That gives us the best of local knowledge and networks with the consistency and continuity of Creandum culture.
That includes Creandum Partner, Peter Specht, in London after 5 great years in our Berlin office and Associate Nick Lawitschka, who joins having most recently worked as a Founders’ Associate at an early stage startup and JP Morgan London before that.
London has also become a hub for our non-investor team, particularly in talent and marketing. Head of Talent, Michelle Coventry, has already developed a Net Promoter Score that puts us to shame and Marketing & Comms Manager, Felicitas Hagen, is expanding our marketing operations to do even more for the portfolio on the ground.
Our London portfolio is expanding
Our London office may be new — but our presence is not. We have made 14 investments in this ecosystem over the past years, making it our second-largest behind DACH. It has been incredible to connect more closely with our local founders on the ground, enable them to meet each other and spend time with us in person helping grow their businesses.
We are also very grateful for the support they have given us to meet new people and close new deals, and in the past 6 months we have added an additional 3 London companies to the funds’ portfolio.
Thank you for the welcome!
We have been astonished by the welcome from local founders, angels and VCs and are delighted to have been able to work closely together and develop the start of what we believe will be long term relationships.
London has truly opened up post covid, and we want to extend a warm thank you to all of us who have met and welcomed us over the past months!
This all became clear in person when we hosted our first get together for our local founders and ecosystem. It was great to thank everyone and officially celebrate our presence in London, as well as seeing you all meet and form even stronger bonds.
What is next?
This is just the beginning. We just raised a $500m fund and we are ready to partner with many more UK based Seed/ A stage founders.
We are also expanding our team and are currently looking for a visiting analyst post Summer.
And of course, we will embark on the dreaded London real estate search to find a larger permanent office soon.
Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.
