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Robert Kniaz

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Robert Kniaz
NationalityBritish
Other namesRob Kniaz
EducationB.S. degree in Computer Science
Alma materUniversity of Maryland
OccupationVenture capitalist
Years active2001 - present

Robert (Rob) Kniaz (born May 1979)[1] is an American venture capitalist based in London.[2] He is a founding partner of H-Tree Capital, a VC firm investing in deep tech and bio/healthcare,[3] and was formerly a partner of Hoxton Ventures,[4] an early-stage investment venture capital firm. Previously, he worked at Google as a product manager for AdSense.

Education

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Kniaz was a National Merit Scholarship recipient at St Mary's Ryken High School.[5] Subsequently, in 2001, he graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.S. degree in Computer Science.[6]

Early career

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He worked at Intel as a market development manager after graduation.[7] He joined Google as a product manager, where he worked on both Adsense referrals[8][9] and pay-per-click advertising.[9][10][11] He helped develop cost per action advertising (now known as Conversion Optimizer).[8]

Intellectual Property

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While working at Google on AdSense, he filed significant US patents for advertising technology particularly around pay-per-action ads, ad syndication and ad tracking. A number of patents remain in the application process both in the US as well as the EU.[12][13]

This portfolio of patents has been cited 301 times in subsequent patents by others, largely in the online advertising field,[14] particularly around user-generated ads which was filed with investor Tomasz Tunguz, a venture capitalist at Theory.

His notable patents include:

  • User-generated advertising, (2009, application abandoned).[15]
  • Syndicated trackable ad content, (2011).[16]
  • A method for selecting ad pricing model dynamically, (2013).[17]
  • Allowing publisher preference of ads shown, (2014).[18]
  • Identifying complementary ads, (2014).[19]
  • Determining ad value in selection, (2014).[20]

Hoxton Ventures

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In 2013, Kniaz and Hussein Kanji founded Hoxton Ventures,[21][22] an early stage European venture capital firm. Hoxton has been cited as one of Europe's leading "unicorn hunter" VCs with two portfolio companies valued at over $1b as of 2018.[23] Along with his partner, he has been noted by Business Insider as one of Europe's "coolest tech investors" in 2018.[24] The firm has raised over $360m to date and was rated #8 in the world in the Founders Choice VC Leaderboard.[25]

The firm's notable investments include Deliveroo (now public as LSE:ROO),[26] and Darktrace (now public as LSE:DARK),[27] Its third unicorn, Babylon Health (delisted from NYSE:BBLN), which Rob served on the board of, subsequently went bankrupt.[28]

Kniaz holds board seats on Assetario, Boost Security, Deblock, FabricNano, Flair Impact, Formance, Kheiron Medical, LiliumX, Limbo Revolution, NoMagic, Ordercast, Pear Bio, Phagos, Preply and Spacelift for Hoxton.[29]

Kniaz also previously served on the boards of Bother (insolvent),[30] Campanja (acquired), Immunio (acquired), Mainframe, Mavrx (acquired), Raptor Supplies and Vatic (insolvent).[31]

H-Tree Capital

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Kniaz co-founded the deep tech and biotech VC firm H-Tree Capital with Vanela Bushi in 2023.[32] The firm is named after a term from fractal geometry.[32]

Technology

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Kniaz is often cited in major news sources for commentary on the European venture capital ecosystem.[33][34] He also regularly comments on macroeconomic trends as they relate to the venture capital industry as well as international travel trends.[35]

Post Brexit he has provided regular commentary around the position of UK venture capital in Europe in publications such as Bloomberg News, the Evening Standard,[36] and Business Insider.[37][38][39]

He is a regular guest on BBC Radio[40] and BBC World Service TV news[41] on the impact of public sector technology companies (especially Google and Apple), as well as on CNBC television.[42]

He is also a regular contributor to Forbes Magazine on venture capital related topics.[43][44]

Personal

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Rob is married to Caroline Kniaz.[45]

References

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  1. ^ "Robert Karol KNIAZ personal appointments - Find and update company information - GOV.UK". find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  2. ^ "Rob Kniaz, London Tech Investor – Rob Kniaz VC at Hoxton Ventures in London". Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  3. ^ Choice, Founder's. "Founder's Choice". founderschoicevc.com. Retrieved 2023-05-17.
  4. ^ Lewin, Amy. "Hoxton Ventures to add a new partner in April".
  5. ^ "MERIT SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS". The Washington Post.
  6. ^ "Alum of the Week: Rob Kniaz, Co-Founder and Partner, Hoxton Ventures". www.cs.umd.edu. 2016-01-28. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  7. ^ "Rob Kniaz co-founder and partner with hoxton ventures".
  8. ^ a b "Meet Rob Kniaz, AdSense Product Manager". Inside AdSense. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  9. ^ a b Montalbano, Elizabeth (2008-09-07). "At 10-year mark, Google's glossy facade shows cracks". Computerworld. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  10. ^ "Google Offers Pay-Per-Action Ads | InformationWeek". www.informationweek.com. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  11. ^ "Pay-per-action beta test". Inside AdWords. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  12. ^ "Google Patents". patents.google.com. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  13. ^ "Google Patents". patents.google.com. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  14. ^ "Rob Kniaz". scholar.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  15. ^ US application 20090112685, Tunguz-Zawislak, Tomasz J.; Kniaz, Rob & Ventilla, Max, "User generated advertising", published 2009-04-30, assigned to Google Inc. , since abandoned.
  16. ^ US 7996777, Kniaz, Rob; Sharma, Abhinay & Chen, Kai, "Syndicated trackable ad content", published 2011-08-09, assigned to Google Inc. 
  17. ^ US 8473339, McKennon, Wendy R.; Mehta, Bhavesh R. & Jackson, Dustin S. et al., "Automatically switching between pricing models for services", published 2013-06-25, assigned to Google Inc. 
  18. ^ US 8768740, Kniaz, Robert; Sharma, Abhinay & Chen, Kai et al., "Publisher preference system for content selection", published 2014-07-01, assigned to Google Inc. 
  19. ^ US 8805727, Kniaz, Robert & Steinback, Jonathan, "Determining complementary product content from primary product document information and providing such complementary product content in association with the primary product document, in an online environment", published 2014-08-12, assigned to Google Inc. 
  20. ^ US 8799078, Kniaz, Robert, "Advertising value tools", published 2014-08-05, assigned to Google Inc. 
  21. ^ Kiss, Jemima (2013-12-04). "Hoxton Ventures raises fund for European technology startups". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  22. ^ Bogoslaw, David (2023-05-30). "Hoxton's newest partner is a Google vet who will help companies scale". Venture Capital Journal. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  23. ^ usmedia (2018-05-21). "Europe's top Unicorn hunters". Dealroom.co. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  24. ^ Ghosh, Shona. "The 36 coolest tech investors in the UK". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  25. ^ Choice, Founder's. "Founder's Choice". founderschoicevc.com. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  26. ^ "Deliveroo raises £2.75m to expand delivery of quality restaurant food across ..." Index Ventures. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  27. ^ "Darktrace Raises $18M to Fund Global Expansion • Darktrace Newsroom". darktrace.com. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  28. ^ "Once a 'unicorn,' Babylon Health sells UK business to eMed via bankruptcy process". fiercehealthcare.com. 2023-09-05.
  29. ^ "Hoxton Ventures - Rob Kniaz". Hoxton Ventures. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  30. ^ "Grocery delivery start-up Bother goes bust leaving customers out of pocket". Yahoo News. 2023-06-08. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  31. ^ "Covid-Testing Startup That Never Sold a Test Runs Out of Cash". Bloomberg.com. 2022-11-11. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  32. ^ a b "All you need to know about H Tree, the new European 'deep biotech' fund started by Hoxton Ventures co-founder Rob Kniaz and healthcare expert Vanela Bushi". Tech.eu. 2023-04-03. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  33. ^ "British Tech Students Shunning Silicon Valley".
  34. ^ "Hoxton Ventures takes aim at Europe's Unicorns". Red Herring. 2015-11-30. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  35. ^ Kharpal, Arjun (18 September 2015). "Interest rate worries? Tech VCs are handling it". CNBC. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  36. ^ Abbott, David Marsland, Rachelle (2023-03-27). "Podcast: What's the next big thing? Hoxton Ventures' Rob Kniaz reveals all". Evening Standard. Retrieved 2023-05-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  37. ^ Ghosh, Shona. "Theresa May wants to make up for a potentially massive shortfall in UK VC funding". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  38. ^ Haworth, Elliott (2016-09-23). "Brand Britain: How will Brexit affect our image abroad?". CityAM. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  39. ^ "British CEOs Bemoan Election Disaster". Bloomberg.com. 2017-06-09. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  40. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Today, 27/02/2017". BBC. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  41. ^ "BBC World Service - World Business Report, UK and EU Agree Brexit Transition Terms". BBC. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  42. ^ "Apple executing according to plan: Pro". CNBC. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  43. ^ Kniaz, Rob. "What's Next In Grocery Disruption After QCommerce?". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  44. ^ "Rob Kniaz". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  45. ^ "Caroline and Rob's Wedding – Charleston, South Carolina, USA". Retrieved 2023-11-25.
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