Listen To Hoxton’s Hussein Kanji On How To Spot A Unicorn, Europe Vs Silicon Valley, And More

Earlier this week I took a call with Hussein Kanji, who, along with Rob Kniaz, is founding partner of London-based VC Hoxton Ventures, a relatively new fund that already has a growing reputation as one of the more ambitious new kids on the VC block.

Prior to Hoxton, Kanji spent time at Accel, also in London, and at Microsoft in the U.S. and various companies in Silicon Valley, including Sun.

And, although we didn’t get to talk about it, he is also part owner of a bakery chain in London, proof that VCs rarely put all of their bread rolls in one basket.

During the pretty relaxed interview we talked on the age-old topic of Europe vs Silicon Valley, how you spot a Unicorn in the making — that is a startup that goes on to be valued at a billion dollars or more — and his own motivations.

We also discussed Hoxton Ventures portfolio companies Deliveroo and Darktrace, both of which Kanji is extremely bullish about.

And I finally cleared up something that has bugged me for a while: Why is the VC firm called Hoxton Ventures when it isn’t even located in Hoxton?

You can listen to the lightly edited interview below.

https://soundcloud.com/techcrunch/interview-hoxton-ventures