A Kindred Team Update
Most VC partnerships are not equal for many reasons. One is simply that it’s hard to find the right people. Someone who prefers to practise venture collaboratively yet loves operating independently. Is fiercely competitive, yet willing to share their success with others. Deeply opinionated, yet able to disagree and commit to decisions for the sake of the team.
We are thrilled to have found that in John Cassidy, who today joins us as a General Partner. John has worked with us in varying capacities over the last few years, most recently as a full-time investing partner, leading our investments in the likes of Latent Labs, Eolas Medical and Infinitopes. John was Kindred from moment one and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be adding him as an equal partner.
John spent the first decade of his career as a scientist, leading projects across a broad spectrum of areas, from oncology drug discovery to tissue engineering. Prior to joining Kindred, he spent five years as the CEO/Co-founder of CCG.ai, pioneering machine learning infrastructure for cancer genomics data. He led that business through to an exit to Dante Labs before joining OSE to help build deeply technical companies based on Oxford IP.
After a tempestuous 2023 for the venture community worldwide, we go into 2024 with excitement and optimism.
John’s commitment to the firm comes at an opportune time. Deep Tech currently stands out as one of the most resilient categories in venture capital, and the moment to build generational companies in John’s areas of focus — frontier tech, ML/AI infrastructure and techbio — is now.
As one door opens, another closes.
The moment is also bittersweet, as we simultaneously will be saying goodbye to Maria.
As she noted in her blog post, for family reasons, she’s cutting short her London and Kindred chapters sooner than envisioned.
However, this in no way detracts from her powerful contribution during that time to Kindred, and the wider European tech ecosystem.
Maria has inspired trust and respect whilst operating in her own unique and inimitable style. As one founder put it: “Maria had a completely different approach [to standard investors] because she was interested in who we are. There was just such a great connection, we made room for her.” Or as another put it: “I love Maria. She’s a hustler, and we really need that early stage plus she has ALWAYS got our backs.”
We are going to miss her a lot and will always be her biggest advocates: whichever firm she eventually joins will be exceptionally lucky to have her.
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” — Henri Bergson
The calibre of a venture partnership comes from its people. But it’s also true that people — and therefore partnerships — naturally evolve. What anchors our partnership — and Kindred as a whole — is a commitment to continuous evolution and playing the long game. To prove that outstanding performance doesn’t come from cheap talk and transactional behaviour, but meaningful relationships, exceptional talent, and a relentless desire to keep raising the bar. And that’ll never change.
