Former SurveyMonkey / Twitter Execs Set Up Growth Fund

Former SurveyMonkey and Euclid exec Brennan O'Donnell, and his business partner Stephen McIntyre, who previously worked at Twitter, have launched an $80m growth-stage fund called Frontline X, which will focus on helping US B2B tech firms expand to Europe.

San Francisco-based O'Donnell previously worked for shopper analytics firm Euclid as Chief Commercial Officer, before which he was VP and GM for SurveyMonkey Enterprise, and he earlier, spent nearly a decade at Google. McIntyre worked most recently at Twitter as VP EMEA, and is credited with setting up the EMEA headquarters and regional sales and marketing teams in Dublin; having previously been Google's Senior Director of Sales in Dublin.

The pair already run B2B venture capital firm Frontline Ventures, which has bases in London, Dublin and San Francisco. Their new fund Frontline X will invest up to $5m in each venture it supports, with a focus on 'high-potential' start-ups which have already raised money from US venture capital firms.

Speaking about the launch of the new fund, McIntyre said: 'We've benchmarked the best of B2B software and seen that, by the time a company goes public, 30% of its revenue should be coming from Europe. But even the biggest names in tech fail to get there because of avoidable mistakes when they land. We've learned about international expansion the hard way as operators. The good news is that most of these problems are known and we take a hands-on approach with every company to ensure they make a fast start when they land and expand'.

Web site: www.frontline.vc .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.