Respected European venture capital associate Katy Turner is leaving Eden Ventures to join video advertising startup Videoplaza, working as their head of marketing out of London. Turner told us on email:
“Working with the fantastic team at Eden has been a great experience – the early stage startup space in Europe is hugely dynamic right now and I have had the luck to work with some really exciting entrepreneurs and investors. I will continue to be involved in supporting the startup community but I’m hugely looking forward to joining the brilliant team at Videoplaza.”
The startup is currently making a name for itself delivering video advertising across the the web and into other devices like TV. It’s secured plenty of VC backing to achieve this.
Is this yet another sign of the bubble? We doubt it. Associates at VCs firms – at least in Europe – often have a “succession problem” in that partners stay on for years and years, meaning it’s very hard to move up the ladder. Instead, being an associate at a VC firm in Europe is a crazily good way to become an entrepreneur.Think about it. You get to expense your way across Europe, looking at lots of different businesses, meeting vast numbers of people and building a network of contacts in the VC community.
Noted VCs-turned-startups include Greg Marsh (ex Indec Capital, now CEO of OneFineStay), Avid Larizadeh (ex Accel, now CEO of Boticca) and Max Niederhofer (Ex-Atlas Venture, now CEO of Qwerly)
And then again, there’s no bubble right. Of course there isn’t.