Index expands

Saul Klein joins as venture partner. Klein will be based in Index’s London office, working closely with existing Index portfolio companies and seeking out new investment opportunities globally.

“We are extremely privileged to have Saul on board, with his global knowledge and deep experience as a serial entrepreneur and seed investor,” said Index Ventures general partner, Danny Rimer. “Saul is highly regarded in the tech community as a senior marketer and we believe that his experience is hugely complementary to the needs of our current and future portfolio companies.”

Klein brings to Index 15 years of entrepreneurial, marketing and media experience. Most recently he served as the global vice president of marketing and e-commerce for Skype (recently purchased by eBay), where he is currently still advising the company on strategic projects. Prior to Skype, Klein co-founded and served as CEO for Video Island, an Index-funded venture that recently merged with LoveFilm to become Europe’s leading online DVD rental and movie download service. Saul was also a founding partner of The Accelerator Group, where he was an active seed investor in both US and European start-ups including Moo.com, SpotRunner, Edgeio, Daylife, Stardoll and Last.fm.

“Becoming part of the investing team at Index Ventures feels like a natural next step for me. I’ve been working side-by-side with the team as an entrepreneur, executive and co-investor for years,” said Klein. “I’ve watched the general partners help grow some of the most prominent US and European start-ups into market leaders and believe that their mix of entrepreneurial skills and networks makes the team one of the best in the industry.”

Klein also held management positions at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond within the Web Platform Services Group; served as the senior vice president for Firefly Network (acquired by Microsoft), and was director of digital communication at WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide. Klein currently serves on the board of directors of bridges.org, an international non-profit which works to promote the effective use of information and communications technology in developing countries and he was a founding member of privacy seal, TRUSTe. He is a founding patron of Imperial Entrepreneurs, which is helping potential student entrepreneurs at Imperial College reach out to London’s established start-up and venture community to kick start opportunities. He was recently named as the winner of the marketing and communications category of the 2006 World Technology Awards in San Francisco.

Index Ventures also appointed two to its life science team in Geneva. PanGenetics founder Mark De Boer was appointed as venture partner and experienced pharmaceutical executive Michèle Ollier has been promoted to partner.

For the past 10 years De Boer has founded and managed early-stage biotech companies in the field of innovative novel biopharmaceuticals. Most notably, he co-founded PanGenetics, an antibody development company based in Cambridge and Utrecht. Prior to that he served as CEO of 4AZA Bioscience based in Leuven, Belgium. He holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam and he is a professor on the faculty of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Utrecht in the field of entrepreneurship in life sciences.

Prior to joining Index, Ollier was a director of investment at Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners where she served on the board of Androclus (USA), U3 Pharma (Germany), Faust Pharmaceuticals (France) and IGNA (France). She gained extensive industry experience at Serono International as corporate vice president of process and development, Sanofi Pharma International, Bristol Myers Squibb France, Rhone Poulenc Rorer International and RPR Gencell in the capacities of strategy, development and commercialisation of pharmaceutical products. She received her degree in medicine from the University of Paris-West and a Business Master’s from the ISSEC Business School.