Mubadala Capital, the financial investment arm of UAE-based Mubadala Investment Company,
has announced the appointment of three senior executives - Frederic Lardieg, James Peck and Mark Tluszcz - to its London-based Europe venture capital team.
One of the world’s leading sovereign wealth funds, Mubadala said in their new roles, Lardieg and Peck will join the leadership team that is overseeing Mubadala Capital’s ventures business in Europe, while Tluszcz will serve as a senior advisor to the business, providing strategic counsel.
The Lardieg-Peck duo will be responsible for a €400-million ($439 million) fund investing in founders and companies across Europe and additionally, a fund of funds program that invests in established and emerging fund managers.
Lardieg has been a venture capital investor in Europe for the past 10 years. Prior to joining Mubadala, he was a partner at Octopus Ventures, where he contributed to the firm’s growth of assets under management from £150 million to more than £1 billion.
He previously worked for the venture capital arm of Vodafone and has a strong track record investing in European tech startups.
Peck joins Mubadala after 17 years in the consumer internet and venture capital sectors. He started his career in technology corporate finance before joining the startup team at Skype prior to its acquisition by eBay.
He went on to run two international marketplace businesses before joining Richard Branson’s family office to help develop the Virgin portfolio. He joins the Europe ventures business as Head of Operations.
Tluszcz is co-founder and CEO of Mangrove Capital Partners and the Chairman of Wix, the cloud-based web development platform. At Mangrove, he was an original investor in Skype, which was sold to eBay for $3 billion in 2005, and Wix, currently trading on the Nasdaq with a market capitalization of over $6 billion.
Since 2000, Mangrove has invested in over 125 companies and manages near $1 billion across five funds.
On the new hires, Hani Barhoush, Executive Director of Mubadala Capital, said: "We are delighted to announce the addition of these three exceptional individuals to our Europe ventures team. Attracting high-calibre individuals like Lardieg, Peck and Tluszcz to join our business is indicative of the ambition we have for our ventures business in Europe."
"The continent’s tech sector offers a wide range of exciting investment opportunities and our proposition, to partner with exceptional, founder-led companies and accelerate their development by leveraging Mubadala’s global network of assets and relationships, is compelling," he noted.
Ibrahim Ajami, Head of Ventures at Mubadala Capital, said: “We are growing our team in Europe based on the potential we see in this market. Through our office in San Francisco, we have already made our presence known in the US with an established team and a growing portfolio."
The ventures platform of Mubadala Capital, which also has offices in San Francisco and Abu Dhabi, manages Mubadala’s $15 billion commitment to the SoftBank Vision Fund, Mubadala Ventures Fund 1 – a US-focused early stage venture fund, and a fund of funds program targets US-based established and emerging managers.
"We now plan to build on that success and target leading technology companies across European markets. We welcome Lardieg, Peck and Tluszcz to the team, and I look forward to working alongside them as we bring our capital and considerable expertise to support a growing portfolio of tech businesses," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Mubadala Capital boosts Europe leadership team
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