Saul Klein

Who they are

Saul Klein is Co-founder and General Partner at Phoenix Court Group — co-founded LoveFilm International (acquired by Amazon), Seedcamp (Europe's first accelerator), and Platoon (acquired by Apple in 2018).

Person

Saul co-founded LocalGlobe with his father Robin Klein in 2002, and the firm has since grown into Phoenix Court Group, running four funds — LocalGlobe, Latitude, Solr, and Basecamp — from pre-seed through public markets. He read at Cambridge (MA, 1992) after St Paul's, then built his operating credibility before turning to VC: he co-founded and was original CEO of LoveFilm International, the DVD-rental-to-streaming service that Amazon acquired in 2011, and held a partnership at Index Ventures. Before all that, he was also at Skype during its early scaling years. The founding record beyond LoveFilm is long: Seedcamp in 2007 (Europe's first accelerator, early backer of UiPath and Revolut), Platoon (music company, acquired by Apple in 2018), Kano (a new kind of computer company), Zinc in 2017 (a mission-driven venture builder co-founded with the LSE and with Paul Kirby and Ella Goldner), the Newton Venture Program in 2020 (co-founded with London Business School to train a new generation of VCs), and Phoenix Court itself formalised in 2015. The through-line is building institutions, not just deploying capital — each vehicle adds a layer to a broader ecosystem project he calls 'New Palo Alto'. He sits on Camden's Economic Renewal Commission, previously served as a Non-Executive Director at DSIT and as a trustee of Comic Relief, was a member of the Council for Science and Technology advising the Prime Minister, and sits on the Southbank Centre Digital Advisory Committee. He writes at TechCrunch and posts on LinkedIn about European tech, innovation cycles, and founder support; he has spoken at the Times CEO Conference, London Tech Week 2026, the OpenLP Podcast, and the EU.VC Podcast on Europe's growth gap and the power-law dynamics of seed investing.

Company

The most live development at Phoenix Court is its 2025–2026 structural pivot to a shared ownership model: Phoenix Court Works has become the single largest shareholder, and all full-time employees now receive equity, profit share, and carry — a deliberate break from traditional GP/LP partnership structures. Four senior partners departed during this transition, including General Partner Suzanne Ashman, who left in 2025 to lead the UK government's Sovereign AI fund. The firm also made its first carried interest distributions from its institutional platform in Q4 2025, following exits of Faculty (to Accenture) and Melio (to Xero). On the portfolio side, Nyobolt reached a $1 billion valuation in May 2026 after Phoenix Court participated in its Series C, and Human Native AI was acquired by Cloudflare in January 2026. Phoenix Court Works itself directs 10% of profits and 2% of fund carry toward community organisations, delivering 80% of its impact within one mile of the Somers Town office.

Market

Phoenix Court sits at the top of the EMEA seed-stage VC rankings — Dealroom named it the number one venture investor in the region for backing high-growth companies at Seed in August 2025, and 13th globally for backing revenue-rich companies at Seed, making it the only non-US fund in the global top 15. The firm competes across the full European multi-stage VC field, with fintechs dominating its 'Thoroughbred' list of standout portfolio companies. The broader context for European VC in 2025–2026 is defined by geopolitical uncertainty, tightening foreign-investment screening (especially in AI and data infrastructure), and a competitive talent market — dynamics that partly explain Phoenix Court's move to shared ownership as a retention and differentiation play.

Network

Saul's closest collaborator is his father Robin Klein, Phoenix Court's co-founder and Chair — an unusual family-firm structure at institutional scale. Through Zinc, he works closely with Paul Kirby and Ella Goldner as co-founders. His public intellectual circle includes Yoram Wijngaarde, founder and CEO of Dealroom, with whom he has discussed Europe's $50B growth gap and power-law investor rankings on the EU.VC Podcast.

Robin Klein· Co-founder and Chair, Phoenix Court Group
Paul Kirby· Co-founder, Zinc
Ella Goldner· Co-founder, Zinc
Yoram Wijngaarde· Founder & CEO, Dealroom
Suzanne Ashman· Former General Partner, Phoenix Court (departed 2025 to lead UK Sovereign AI fund)

How they likely show up

Multi-decade tenure co-founding and building Phoenix Court from 2002 → thinks in generational arcs, not fund cycles — the shared ownership restructure is framed as a permanent institutional shift, not a tactical pivot.
Founded or co-founded at least nine named entities (LoveFilm, Seedcamp, LocalGlobe, Latitude, Zinc, Kano, Platoon, Newton Venture Program, Phoenix Court Works) → high agency, likely drives ideas to formation rather than waiting for consensus.
Active at policy level — DSIT NED, Council for Science and Technology adviser, Camden Economic Renewal Commission member → comfortable operating in government and public-institution contexts alongside private capital.
Writes at TechCrunch and speaks at London Tech Week, the Times CEO Conference, and podcasts on European tech themes → publicly visible and opinionated; expects counterparts to have done the reading.
Zinc co-founded with the LSE, Newton Venture Program with London Business School → deliberately builds with institutions, not just around them; academic and civic legitimacy matter to him.
Phoenix Court Works explicitly delivers 80% of its impact within one mile of the Somers Town office → local rootedness is a stated value, not just a PR line; place and community are load-bearing concepts for him.

Conversation tips

→ Come with a specific view on European tech — he has spent years arguing for 'New Palo Alto' and will engage hard with anyone who has a real position, positive or negative.
→ Reference Dealroom's power-law ranking data if you want to speak his language on portfolio quality — he has co-discussed it publicly with Yoram Wijngaarde and it's clearly a framework he uses.
→ Ask about the shared ownership transition rather than treating Phoenix Court as a conventional VC — the structural change is the live story and he'll have a lot to say about why traditional partnership models are broken.
→ Acknowledge the operator background — LoveFilm CEO, Skype, Index Ventures — before the investor identity; he came up building, not just backing.
→ Don't skip the civic layer: Camden, DSIT, Southbank Centre, Phoenix Court Works are not window dressing for him; they're part of the same project as the funds.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the shared ownership restructure — in 2025–2026 Phoenix Court made Phoenix Court Works its single largest shareholder and gave every full-time employee equity, carry, and profit share, while four senior partners departed. It's a live institutional experiment and he's the architect of it.
Lead with Seedcamp: he co-founded Europe's first accelerator in 2007 — before most people were using the word 'ecosystem' — and it seeded UiPath and Revolut. That origin story is the root of everything Phoenix Court became.
Mention Platoon — the music company he co-founded that Apple acquired in 2018. It's the one exit in his founding portfolio that cuts across tech into culture, and it signals the breadth of what he thinks venture can back.

Discovery questions

The shared ownership model puts Phoenix Court Works as the single largest shareholder — how do you think about the tension between maximising returns for LPs and running the firm as a community institution?
Dealroom ranks Phoenix Court #1 in EMEA for seed-stage power-law picks, but you've also talked publicly about Europe's $50B growth gap versus the US — where does the breakdown actually happen for European companies, and what would fix it?
You co-founded Seedcamp in 2007, LocalGlobe in the early 2000s, Zinc with the LSE, and the Newton Venture Program with LBS — each one builds a different kind of institution around founders. What's the theory of change behind building the infrastructure rather than just deploying capital into it?

Avoid

Don't treat Phoenix Court as a conventional fund-of-funds or pitch him on a single-company opportunity without engaging the institutional and ecosystem layer — he has spent decades building the infrastructure around companies, not just writing cheques into them.

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