Venture Capital · Profile from Venture Capital Research Companion
LocalGlobe (Phoenix Court Group)
The London seed firm of father and son Robin and Saul Klein, who turned two decades of family angel investing (The Accelerator Group, from 1998–99) into an institutional seed franchise in 2015, added the Latitude growth fund in 2019, and in 2022 reorganised as Phoenix Court Group — a "seed to IPO and beyond" platform behind Wise, Zoopla, Improbable, Tide, Cleo, Zego, Motorway and (via Latitude) Monzo.
At a glance
- Founded
- April 2015 as LocalGlobe (institutional seed fund); predecessor The Accelerator Group (TAG), co-founded by Robin and Saul Klein in 1998–99; renamed parent Phoenix Court Group in June 2022
- Founders
- Robin Klein (serial entrepreneur and angel) and Saul Klein (Lovefilm co-founder, early Skype executive, former Index Ventures partner, Seedcamp co-founder)
- Headquarters
- Phoenix Court, King's Cross, London (previously Tileyard Studios, King's Cross)
- Ownership / structure
- Independent, partner/family-owned manager; Phoenix Court Group is the parent of LocalGlobe (pre-seed/seed), Latitude (breakout/early growth), Solar (scale-up and public markets) and Basecamp (a community/programme for emerging managers and angels)
- Leadership (2026)
- Saul Klein (co-founder); Robin Klein (co-founder); partners including George Henry, Remus Brett and Julia Hawkins at LocalGlobe and Julian Rowe at Latitude (verify current roster and titles)
- AUM / capital raised
- ~$500m raised across the group in 2022; cumulative institutional commitments since 2015 plausibly ~$1.3bn+ (estimate, verify)
- Stage focus
- LocalGlobe: pre-seed and seed, often leading, UK and Europe first; Latitude: Series B-type "breakout" rounds, with ~65% of its companies expected from the LocalGlobe seed portfolio; Solar: pre-IPO and public
- Signature investments
- TAG/angel era: lastminute.com, Lovefilm, Last.fm, SlideShare, TweetDeck, Zoopla, Farfetch, Wise (TransferWise); LocalGlobe/Latitude: Improbable, Tide, Cleo, Zego, Motorway, Citymapper, Robinhood (listed), Monzo (Latitude, 2019); instructive failures: Improbable (2017 paper unicorn, later divestitures), Wonga (Robin Klein angel-era, collapsed 2018)
8 deals and moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2007
Zoopla
Early-Stage / Angel
2012
TransferWise
Angel / Early-Stage
2013
Improbable
Seed
2015
Tide
Seed
2016
Cleo
Seed
2016
Zego
Seed
2017
Motorway
Seed
2019
Monzo
Latitude Growth