UK – Taavet Hinrikus (Wise), Sten Tamkivi (Teleport), Ian Hogarth (Songkick) and Khaled Helioui (Bigpoint) launched a €250m early stage venture fund called Plural.
The fund is dedicated to investing in fellow ‘Unemployables’ building Europe’s next generation of tech companies with global ambitions. Plural’s intention is to be a hands-on investor, and focus on leading early stage rounds between €1 and €10m. It is focused on 4-5 deals a year per investor. Plural is a scalable investment platform whose investors are exclusively former founders and operators with decades of company building experience. Other recognised founders will announce themselves soon. It has already made 14 investments including Feather, Field, Ready Player Me, and Mos. The foundersTaavet Hinrikus co-founded Wise in 2010. The company completed a direct listing on the London market. Before co-founding Wise, he was the 1st employee at Skype.Ian Hogarth co-founded Songkick in 2007, sold to Warner Music Group in 2017. He is the co-author of the State of AI report and Chair of quantum software startup Phasecraft.Khaled Helioui was CEO of Bigpoint from 2013 to 2017 of which he led the turnaround and sale to Youzu. Sten Tamkivi started his entrepreneurial career at 18 when he founded a digital agency and was an early executive at Skype. He later co-founded Teleport, sold to Topia in 2017.28/06/2022
