We’re really excited today to formally welcome one of our close friends, Simon Levene, into the Index family. Simon is joining us as a full-time Venture Partner based out of our London office, and bringing him on board really adds to our ability to support the most ambitious entrepreneurs looking to build international businesses from Europe and Israel.
Like many of us at Index, Simon’s background, experience and relationships bridge the Atlantic having lived and worked on both sides of the pond. He has extensive Internet operating experience from his time at Excite@Home in the Valley and Yahoo!, as well as great multi-stage investment experience with our friends at Accel in London.
While at Accel, we had the chance to get to know Simon well when we joined him as an investor in MyHeritage. But his relationships with the Index team go back a long way, in fact Danny and Saul have known him for over 25 years and Dom worked very closely with him at Yahoo!. The rest of us have had a chance to get to know him well in the last year as we worked together on seed deals like Groupspaces, venture deals like Shapeways with Union Square Ventures and growth deals like Squarespace with Accel and Etsy.
Over the years, we’ve come to admire his taste in football teams and exotic blends of green tea – but remained healthy sceptics when it comes to his taste in hats and ponchos. But most of all, we’ve really enjoyed working alongside him and think Simon becoming part of the Index family can only add value to the service we aim to offer the most ambitious teams in Europe, Israel and the US. So welcome Simon, and if you happen to be at TED this week, please stop him to say hello and wish him the best for Arsenal’s big game in Barcelona, especially after their crushing defeat by Birmingham this weekend.