INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
When long time Uber employee and head of Uber food delivery business in Europe, Middle East and Africa, Jambu Palaniappan, quit the
on-demand juggernaut, it was let slip that he planned to join a European venture capital firm, but it wasn&t clear who.
Until
now.
TechCrunch has learned from several sources in the European early-stage investment community and from a number of portfolio companies
that the former UberEats executive has joined Atomico, the London-based VC firm co-founded by Skype founder Niklas Zennström.
Specifically,
Palaniappan will be joining Atomico as part of its Executive-In-Residence (XiR) programme
This sees the VC firm offer former founders and senior operators 12 month contracts to help mentor the next generation of Atomico portfolio
company founders while those individuals figure out what they want to do next.
Sources have also told me that a senior executive from
Deepmind may have also joined the European VC but the exact name is still to be confirmed
Atomico did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publishing.
Meanwhile, according to Atomico website, another of its
Executive-In-Residence is former Spotify employee number 8 Sophia Bendz, who was previously Global Director of Marketing and Communications
at the music streaming giant
In addition, eRepublik Labs founder and CEO Alexis Bonte, and Rdio founder Carter Adamson, were both XiR but have since chosen to stay on at
Atomico as Venture Partners.
