Alexander Straub is a German born entrepreneur and European venture capitalist at London based Straub Ventures as well as Cambridge based Cambridge Accelerator Partners. He is a native of Darmstadt, Germany.[1] He was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, where he started (but never finished) a DPhil, and holds two engineering degrees, one from Darmstadt and one from Cornell. Straub has also conducted research in material science for his diploma thesis as a German Academic Exchange Service Scholar at Stanford University.
In 1999, Straub and business partner Rouzbeh Pirouz entered and won a Sunday Times of London entrepreneurship contest. With their prize money the two founded Mondus - an online B2B marketplace for SMEs, which was inspired by eBay’s business model and Straub’s internship experience at Degussa. Mondus was partially sold (40.7%) to the Italian Yellow Pages giant Seat Pagine Gialle in 2000, in one of the largest transactions of its type for a European startup. Soon after the transaction Straub left the firm, while his former partner Pirouz stayed on, and Mondus went out of business. The Sunday Times (London) reported in 2001 that Straub belonged to the 100 richest young people in the UK.
Prior to Mondus, Straub held an internship position with Goldman Sachs’ principal investment area in London where he assisted an investment into SSL, later floated on NASDAQ under the name Parthus. During his studies he also worked as an intern at McKinsey & Co, Degussa, Braas and Heraeus. After Mondus, he became a principal and general partner at Lazard Technology Partners (LTP) in New York. While at LTP he was the lead investor in 20 technology companies from a $300m fund focused on early to late stage enterprises in the areas of software, telecom and Internet.
Parallel to his engagement in funding and supporting promising tech startups in the domains of internet, mobile, biotech and green technologies at Straub Ventures he also acts as director in some of his current investments. Examples investments are IBX a procurement software company based in Stockholm, Sweden, OB10 the worlds leading e-Invoicing network and Summit PLC a leading UK biotech company. He is the Chairman and co-founder of Pixsta, the Visual Search company behind “http://www.empora.com”. Pixsta has won several awards like Red Herring Europe 100 and was shortlisted to Global Red Herring 100. He also co-founded ((truphone)), which uses Voice over WLAN technology. Truphone holds numerous awards like Mobile Voice Product of the Year, Global Red Herring 100 and Technology Pioneer at the World Economic Forum 2007. He is a board member of ((truphone)) and advices the company in strategic questions. Alexander Straub was named Technology Pioneer at the World Economic Forum in 2007 and 2008.
He lives with his wife, fashion designer Tilla Lindig, which runs Happycoat a fairtrade and green label, and three young children in Notting Hill, London.
Source: Wikipedia
