Rob Kniaz, co-founder of London-based Hoxton Ventures, is in talks with potential LPs about forming a new deep tech-focused venture capital firm, according to a report by CNBC.
Citing anonymous sources, the business news outlet noted that Kniaz’s departure is not imminent and he will continue to manage the $215 million fund that Hoxton raised last year.
Hoxton, whose notable investments include food delivery app Deliveroo and cybersecurity firm Darktrace, was founded in 2013 by Kniaz and Hussein Kanji.
The firm has raised four funds to date. It closed on $40 million for its debut fund in 2013, €6 million for the Irish Venture Capital Fund in 2014, $100 million for Hoxton Ventures II in 2020 and $215 million for Hoxton Ventures III in March 2022, according to Venture Capital Journal research. The target for Fund III was $150 million.
Investors in Fund III include British Patient capital, which committed $30 million, and Private Equity Holding AG, which committed an undisclosed amount.
Performance data is unavailable for Hoxton, but the firm has notched 18 exits, including 11 through M&A, three through secondaries transactions, two through IPOs, one through a buyout and one through a reverse merger, according to PitchBook. Deliveroo went public on the London Stock Exchange in March 2021 and currently has a market cap of $2 billion, while Darktrace listed on the LSE in April 2021 and now sports a market cap of £1.94 billion ($2.3 billion).
Kniaz moved to London from Silicon Valley in 2008 to join Fidelity Ventures, focusing on consumer internet and software-as-a-service sectors, according to his biography on the Hoxton website. He had previously worked at Google where he was on the business development team.
Before co-founding Hoxton, Kanji was an associate with Accel Partners and worked at Microsoft and three start-ups, Safe-View, Radiance Technologies and Studio Verso, his biography states.
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