Danny Rimer
Born1970 (age 53–54)
Canada
Alma materHarvard University
Occupation(s)Venture capitalist, Partner at Index Ventures

Danny Rimer OBE (born 1970) is a partner at Index Ventures, a global venture capital firm founded in Geneva in 1992.[1] Rimer opened the firm's London office in 2002 and its San Francisco office in 2012. He has become a leading voice[2] on venture capital in Silicon Valley and Europe, and has been actively involved in various philanthropic and cultural activities.[3][4]

Early life

Rimer was born in Canada, but grew up in Geneva, Switzerland.[5] After graduating from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in history and literature,[1] he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

Career

While in the Bay Area, Rimer and some friends began a company to digitize images of famous artwork and sell the downloads, forging exclusive deals with galleries such as the Louvre and the Uffizi Gallery to commercialize the images.[1]

In 1994, Rimer joined Hambrecht & Quist (now owned by JP Morgan), where he began an Internet sector equity research group.[6] He was managing director and underwriting analyst for Amazon, Netscape and Verisign.[1] and helped to take Netscape public.[5]

Rimer became a general partner of The Barksdale Group in 1999, where he invested in a dozen companies including Crossgain (acquired by BEA Systems), Ofoto (acquired by Kodak) and Tellme Networks (acquired by Microsoft), before joining Index in 2002 to establish the London office. He later co-founded the San Francisco office in 2012 with Index partner Mike Volpi.[7]

In his early years at Index, Rimer made a series of notable investments in infrastructure and services companies such as Skype, MySQL and Last.fm (acquired by CBS for $280 million).[8][2]

He later led the firm’s investments in 1stdibs, Anki, Boku, Dropbox (Nasdaq: DBX) (in which he led a series B round investment of $250 million in 2011),[9] Etsy (Nasdaq: ETSY), Farfetch (NYSE: FTCH), Flipboard, King (acquired by Activision in 2016 for $5.9 billion),[10] Zesty, and Beauty Pie,[11] among others.[12]

More recently, Rimer has received growing public attention for leading Index's investments in Discord, Patreon, Glossier, Beauty Pie, Otrium, Grailed, and Goat.[13] Most notable among his latest batch of investments is Figma, an online collaborative design platform. Index wrote a seed-stage check for Figma in 2013.[14] In 2022, Adobe announced it would acquire Figma for $20 billion, making Index's share of the company worth $2.6 billion if the deal closes.[15] However, numerous news report indicated that the U.S. Department of Justice may sue to block the acquisition for violating anti-trust rules.[16]

Rimer was previously a director at KVS (acquired by Veritas in 2004 for $225 million);[17] Last.fm,[8] Lovefilm (known as "The Netflix of Europe," acquired by Amazon in 2011 for $317 million);[18] MySQL (acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008 for $1 billion and now part of Oracle);[19] Neoteris (acquired by NetScreen in 2003 for $245[20] and now part of Juniper Networks); Sky PLC (LSE: SKY); Skype (acquired by eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion and then by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion);[21][22] and TrialPay (acquired by Visa in February 2017.[23]

Awards and honors

Rimer's various awards and honors include:

He is a fixture at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, an annual gathering of business leaders, political figures, and major figures in the philanthropic and cultural spheres.[34]

Philanthropy and non-profit involvement

Rimer serves on the board of Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres, a network of drop-in healthcare centers across the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, with the aim of helping cancer patients.[3] He was formerly on the board of trustees at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Forston, Danny (11 June 2006). "Danny Rimer: In a nation of shopkeepers, great start-ups don't fly off the shelf". The Independent. London. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
  2. 1 2 "40 Under 40: Danny Rimer". CNNMoney. Cable News Network. Archived from the original on 2 March 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
  3. 1 2 "Board Committees at Maggie's". Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres. The Maggie Keswick Jencks Cancer Caring Centres Trust. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
  4. 1 2 "Board of Trustees". SFMOMA. San Francisco Museum of Art. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
  5. 1 2 Heilemann, John (8 August 2007). "The venture capital king of Europe". CNNMoney. Cable News Network. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
  6. ↑ "8 Rising VC Stars: Danny Rimer". CNNMoney. Cable News Network. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
  7. ↑ Ashton, James (9 August 2013). "Danny Rimer from Index Ventures: The Silicon Valley Exile Who Sees A New Internet Gold Rush On the Way". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
  8. 1 2 "CBS Acquires Europe's Last.fm for $280 million". TechCrunch. 20 May 2007.
  9. ↑ "Dropbox Raises $250M In Funding, Boasts 45 Million Users". TechCrunch. 18 October 2011.
  10. ↑ "Activision Blizzard Becomes "Largest Game Network in the World" With Candy Crush Dev Buyout". GameSpot. 23 February 2016. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
  11. ↑ Paton, Elizabeth (16 December 2020). "Makeup Without the Markup". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  12. ↑ "Danny Rimer". Index Ventures. Index Ventures. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
  13. ↑ Martin, Iain. "How This European VC Landed A $2.6 Billion Windfall From Adobe's Figma Takeover". Forbes. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
  14. ↑ "The Story of Figma: Collaboration, Community and Creativity | by Danny Rimer". Index Ventures. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
  15. ↑ Martin, Iain. "How This European VC Landed A $2.6 Billion Windfall From Adobe's Figma Takeover". Forbes. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
  16. ↑ "Adobe's $20B Deal for Figma Reportedly Faces DOJ Opposition". CNET. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
  17. ↑ "Veritas Acquires KVS, Gains E-Mail Archiving Capabilities". CRN. 31 August 2004.
  18. ↑ "Amazon Acquires LoveFilm, The Netflix of Europe". 12 May 2010.
  19. ↑ "Sun Picks Up MySQL For $1 Billion; Open Source Is A Legitimate Business Model". Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  20. ↑ "NetScreen To Acquire Neoteris, SSL VPN Market Leader".
  21. ↑ "EBay Buys Skype for $2.6 Billion". PC World. 12 September 2005. Archived from the original on 14 November 2020. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
  22. ↑ "Why Microsoft Is Buying Skype for $8.5 Billion". GigaOM. 9 May 2011.
  23. ↑ "Visa Announces Acquisition Of TrialPay To Expand Its Offers Platform". TechCrunch. 27 February 2015.
  24. ↑ "Forbes Profile: Danny Rimer".
  25. ↑ "Danny Rimer". Midas List. Forbes.com, Inc. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
  26. ↑ "Danny Rimer". Midas List. Forbes.com, Inc. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
  27. ↑ "Danny Rimer". Forbes. No. Midas List. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  28. ↑ "The Midas List Europe 2019". Forbes. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  29. ↑ "Fortune magazine 40 Under 40 2009". Fortune. Archived from the original on 2 August 2019. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  30. ↑ "The Top 20 Venture Capital Investors Worldwide". The New York Times. 13 March 2016. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  31. ↑ "The Top 20 Venture Capital Investors Worldwide". The New York Times. 27 March 2017.
  32. ↑ "The Top 100 Venture Capitalists".
  33. ↑ "No. 61803". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2016. p. N14.
  34. ↑ "Sun Valley: Where the money is". MediaFile. Thomson Reuters. 8 July 2009. Archived from the original on 11 July 2009. Retrieved 1 March 2011.

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