One of the UK’s most prominent technology investors, Robin Klein co-founded LocalGlobe in 2003 with his son Saul.
Over the course of his career he has made over 100 investments including in leading tech brands such as Lovefilm (Amazon), Wise (LSE: WISE), Citymapper, Moo, Zoopla (ZPG), Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD), Monzo, Tide, Figma, Graze (Unilever), Secret Escapes, Improbable, Adzuna, MyBuilder and Cazoo (NYSE: CZOO).
Both Saul and I are entrepreneurs and founders. We've built companies from the ground up, and we’ve both been through the pain of doing that, the personal angst. So we've got specific empathy for founders, not just at the moment of making a deal with them, but also from living through what they go through.
Although Robin seldom leads investments any longer, he advises the team and our founders across, and continues to play a leadership role. Thematically he has a longstanding interest in ecommerce companies, as well as marketplaces, fintech and “disruptors of old industries such as construction and manufacturing”. A former advisor to Seedcamp, TechNation, and Silicon Valley Bank, and a non-exec director of two public technology companies – MoneySupermarket and Zoopla Property Group – Robin still sits on a few portfolio company boards including those of Adzuna and Moo.
We never forget that the company we invest in belongs to the founders and that we are part of their support team, and not the other way around.
Previously a Venture Partner at Index Ventures, where he focused on seed investments, Robin built his first business, Berda Electric, as a recently graduated Electrical Engineer, which he sold at the age of 29 to move to the UK. He went on to become Executive Chairman and CEO of Innovations Mail Order, which was sold in 1985 to the Burton Group (later to demerge as Debenhams and Arcadia). As part of the sale, he joined the group and became Managing Director of Marketing and Home Shopping at the Arcadia Group.
Innovations was the first company in the UK to conduct an ecommerce transaction which it did in May 1995.
He studied both electrical and industrial engineering, and holds an MSc in Engineering from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.