Rob Kniaz

Who they are

Rob Kniaz is Founding Partner at Hoxton Ventures and H Tree Capital — a Computer Science grad from Maryland who went from Product Manager at Google AdSense to co-founding two VC firms, the second focused on deep tech and biotech.

Person

Rob studied Computer Science at the University of Maryland, then added an MS in Management Science & Engineering at Stanford — a combination that explains the technical-commercial instinct he's carried ever since. He started in technical sales at Intel covering the Federal Government and Latin America, then moved to Fidelity Ventures on the investments team (consumer internet and SaaS), before joining Google as Product Manager for AdSense. In 2013 he co-founded Hoxton Ventures with Hussein Kanji — joining when Fund I was targeting $50M — and built it into a London-based early-stage firm with a string of European tech bets. A decade in, he spun out a second vehicle: H Tree Capital, co-founded in 2023 with Vanela Bushi, focused on the intersection of deep technology and biotechnology — drug discovery, synthetic biology, and clinical trials, with portfolio companies including Phagos, CuspAI, and Sovereign AI. The through-line is a technically-trained American who moved to London to bet on European tech before it was fashionable, and has now placed a second, more specialist bet on deep biotech. He writes for Forbes on European VC and tech investment, keeps a personal site at robk.com covering London tech and investing, and has appeared on BBC Radio and CNBC to comment on UK venture capital — comfortable being a public voice for the asset class.

Company

H Tree Capital, launched in 2023, is Rob's specialist seed fund at the intersection of deep technology and biotechnology, co-founded with Vanela Bushi. The firm focuses on drug discovery, synthetic biology, and clinical trials — areas where technical depth is a prerequisite to diligence. Portfolio companies named publicly include Phagos, CuspAI, and Sovereign AI. Rob covered CuspAI's $450M Series B in a post on robk.com, signalling active public engagement with portfolio milestones. Hoxton Ventures, the original firm he co-founded in 2013, continues to operate alongside H Tree as a separate, active vehicle.

Market

H Tree Capital sits in the emerging 'Tech:Bio' seed segment — a small cluster of specialist funds betting that software-driven approaches will accelerate drug discovery and synthetic biology in Europe. Hoxton Ventures competes in the broader early-stage European VC market against firms that have significantly more capital. Rob's public positioning frames European deep tech as underserved at the seed stage, particularly relative to US counterparts.

Network

Rob's closest professional anchors are Hussein Kanji, with whom he co-founded Hoxton Ventures, and Vanela Bushi, who co-founded H Tree Capital with him and brings healthcare expertise. Dylan Collins sits on the Hoxton Ventures team as Venture Partner. Portfolio relationships include teams at Phagos, CuspAI, and Sovereign AI.

Hussein Kanji· Co-founder, Hoxton Ventures
Vanela Bushi· Co-founder, H Tree Capital
Dylan Collins· Venture Partner, Hoxton Ventures

How they likely show up

Long tenure at Hoxton Ventures (founded 2013, still active) → thinks in fund cycles and decade-long relationships, not short horizons.
Founded a second, specialist firm (H Tree Capital) after a decade running a generalist early-stage fund → appetite for deliberate re-invention rather than coasting on an established brand.
Amateur coding and development of internal data science tools alongside an investor role → retains a hands-on technical identity; likely engages substantively on product and engineering detail, not just market sizing.
Public-facing across Forbes, BBC Radio, CNBC, and multiple podcasts → comfortable being a public representative of a point of view, not just a quiet capital allocator.
Content themes cluster tightly around deep tech, biotech, and drug discovery → specialist conviction, not a generalist watcher; has a defined thesis and will defend it.
Personal interest in visiting 100 countries → high tolerance for ambiguity and unfamiliar environments, likely brings that to sourcing in underexplored markets.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific H Tree portfolio company — Phagos, CuspAI, or Sovereign AI — rather than the fund in the abstract; he's invested in the outcomes, not the brand.
→ Ask about the decision to spin out H Tree separately from Hoxton rather than folding deep tech into the existing fund — that structural choice is a deliberate thesis, worth exploring.
→ He writes at robk.com and contributes to Forbes; referencing a specific post (e.g. the CuspAI Series B piece) signals you've done the reading.
→ His background is technical (CS undergrad, PM at Google) so he'll engage at depth on technology — don't stay at the 30,000-foot market level.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the CuspAI $450M Series B — he wrote about it on robk.com, which means it's a milestone he's publicly proud of; it's an easy way in to the H Tree thesis and what 'winning' looks like from a deep tech seed bet.
Reference the decision to co-found H Tree Capital in 2023 after a decade at Hoxton — spinning out a specialist biotech vehicle rather than expanding the existing fund is a deliberate structural choice that reflects a specific view on how deep tech investing should work.
He keeps a personal site at robk.com and writes for Forbes — lead with a specific topic he's covered (European VC, infrastructure as code, deep biotech) to signal you've engaged with his actual thinking, not just his LinkedIn headline.

Discovery questions

After a decade of generalist early-stage bets at Hoxton, what made 2023 the right moment to build a specialist deep-tech biotech vehicle in H Tree?
How do you do technical diligence on drug discovery or synthetic biology at the seed stage — what does a conviction-building process look like when the science is years from a clinical signal?
You came up through product (Google AdSense) and kept coding on the side — how much does that technical instinct change the way you engage with founders versus a more purely finance-background investor?

Avoid

Don't treat him as a generalist European VC commentator — he has a defined deep-tech biotech thesis at H Tree and will engage more substantively on that than on broad market takes.

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