Saul Klein

Who they are

Saul Klein is Managing Partner at Phoenix Court — co-founded LoveFilm (sold to Amazon in 2011), Seedcamp (Europe's first accelerator), and Platoon (acquired by Apple in 2018).

Person

Saul started the fund that would become LocalGlobe in 2002 alongside his father Robin Klein, when it was a small seed operation — building it over two decades into Phoenix Court, now ranked #1 in EMEA on Dealroom's Power Law Investor Ranking. Before the full-time VC turn, he was co-founder and original CEO of LoveFilm International, the DVD and streaming rental service Amazon bought in 2011, and a Partner at Index Ventures, with a spell at Skype in between. He read at Cambridge (MA, 1992), went to St Paul's before that, and served on the UK government's Council for Science and Technology as well as a Non-Executive Director role at the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology — unusually deep policy engagement for a VC. The list of things he's co-founded is long: Seedcamp (2007, Europe's first accelerator, early backer of UiPath and Revolut), Zinc (2017, mission-driven venture builder co-founded with LSE and Paul Kirby and Ella Goldner), Platoon (music company acquired by Apple in 2018), Kano (a new kind of computer company), the Newton Venture Program (2020, with London Business School), and LocalGlobe itself. The through-line is institution-building — he doesn't just back companies, he builds the scaffolding around them: accelerators, education programs, policy roles, and now a shared-ownership fund structure. He writes for TechCrunch, posts actively on LinkedIn about European tech and innovation cycles, and spoke at London Tech Week 2026; the Phoenix Court 'New Palo Alto' manifesto lays out his thesis that London can be a permanent peer to Silicon Valley, not just an occasional rival.

Company

The most recent move at Phoenix Court is its structural transformation into a shared-ownership institution: in 2025–2026 the firm shifted away from a traditional VC partnership model, distributing equity, profit share, and carry to all full-time employees, with Phoenix Court Works — a foundation — becoming the single largest shareholder. Four senior partners departed during the transition, including General Partner Suzanne Ashman, who left to lead the UK government's Sovereign AI fund. The firm made its first carried interest distributions from its institutional platform following exits of Faculty to Accenture and Melio to Xero in Q4 2025. In May 2026, Phoenix Court participated in Nyobolt's Series C at a $1 billion valuation, adding a unicorn to the current portfolio, and Human Native AI was acquired by Cloudflare in January 2026. Phoenix Court also raised a $500M first close across four funds in June 2022 and has been active with 3 investments in 2026 to date.

Market

Phoenix Court operates across four funds — LocalGlobe (pre-seed/seed), Latitude (early growth), Solr, and Basecamp — covering seed to public markets, and is ranked #1 in EMEA by Dealroom for backing high-growth companies at the seed stage, the only non-US fund in the global top 15 for that metric. Fintechs dominate its 'Thoroughbred' list of standout portfolio companies, including Monzo, Tide, and Melio. The broader European VC market it competes in is being shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, regulatory flux, and a growing debate about the continent's growth gap relative to the US — themes Saul addresses publicly and that directly inform Phoenix Court's positioning as a multi-stage, London-rooted institution.

Network

Saul's closest working relationship is with his father Robin Klein, co-founder at Phoenix Court. He co-founded Zinc with Paul Kirby and Ella Goldner, and has engaged publicly with Yoram Wijngaarde of Dealroom on European VC benchmarking and the Power Law ranking. He has also served alongside Camden's Economic Renewal Commission and previously as a Comic Relief trustee, giving him an unusually wide civic network alongside the startup one.

Robin Klein· Co-founder, Phoenix Court
Paul Kirby· Co-founder, Zinc
Ella Goldner· Co-founder, Zinc
Yoram Wijngaarde· Founder & CEO, Dealroom
Suzanne Ashman· Former General Partner, Phoenix Court (now leading UK Sovereign AI fund)

How they likely show up

Long tenure building LocalGlobe/Phoenix Court since 2002 → thinks in decade-scale arcs; unlikely to be impressed by short-term optics.
Serial institution-builder (Seedcamp, Zinc, Newton Venture Program, shared-ownership structure) → tends to reach for structural solutions, not one-off interventions.
Active public writer on TechCrunch and LinkedIn, plus policy roles at DSIT and Council for Science and Technology → comfortable operating across founder, investor, and government registers simultaneously.
Co-founded LoveFilm and ran it as CEO before moving to VC → has genuine operator experience to draw on, not just pattern-matching from the investor seat.
Hybrid role pattern (investor + policy advisor + institution co-founder) → likely manages multiple concurrent priorities and responds well to concise, high-signal interactions.
The 'New Palo Alto' manifesto and consistent European tech advocacy → has a clear ideological north star; pitches or conversations that ignore the European context will land flat.

Conversation tips

→ Reference the Phoenix Court shared-ownership restructure specifically — he's just steered a significant organisational change and will have strong views on why traditional VC partnership models are broken.
→ If you have a view on Europe's growth gap versus the US (the $50B figure from the EU.VC podcast conversation with Yoram Wijngaarde), bring it — this is a live debate he's publicly engaged in.
→ Mention a specific Phoenix Court portfolio company (Monzo, Tide, Accurx, Nyobolt) rather than speaking generically about 'your portfolio' — he'll know you've done the work.
→ Don't skip the operator past — he co-founded and ran LoveFilm before the fund career; asking about that transition tends to open up richer conversation than staying on the investor track.
→ He sits on Camden's Economic Renewal Commission and has deep policy roots — if your work touches UK tech policy or industrial strategy, surface it early.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the Phoenix Court shared-ownership restructure — he just moved Phoenix Court Works into the single-largest-shareholder seat and gave every full-time employee equity and carry, a direct challenge to how traditional VC firms are organised.
Lead with Seedcamp: he co-founded Europe's first accelerator in 2007, and it made early seed investments in UiPath and Revolut — a good anchor for a conversation about what the European ecosystem looked like before the current wave, and how his approach has evolved.
Reference the Faculty-to-Accenture and Melio-to-Xero exits in Q4 2025 — these were Phoenix Court's first carried interest distributions from its institutional platform, a milestone worth acknowledging before the conversation goes anywhere else.

Discovery questions

The shared-ownership model puts Phoenix Court Works as the single largest shareholder — how does that change the incentive structure for the investment team day-to-day, compared with a traditional partnership carry model?
You co-founded Seedcamp in 2007 as Europe's first accelerator, and you're still building new institutions almost 20 years later with the Newton Venture Program and Zinc — what's still missing from the European ecosystem that you think needs to be built?
Phoenix Court is ranked #1 in EMEA at seed stage, but the EU.VC conversation with Yoram flagged a $50B growth gap between Europe and the US — where does the problem actually sit: is it seed, growth capital, or something structural about how European companies scale?

Avoid

Don't treat him as a generalist European VC commentator — he has specific, long-held structural theses about what the ecosystem needs; vague questions about 'the European tech scene' without a concrete hook will signal you haven't read his work.

Make it yours