Hiro Capital, a London-based venture capital firm, has achieved two of the biggest European tech hires in memory; in fact, they have attracted former UK deputy prime minister and ex-Meta executive Nick Clegg to be a general partner of Hiro and Yann LeCun, Meta’s outgoing chief AI scientist and one of the world’s most influential AI researchers, to the Hiro advisory board.
The two moves come to Hiro Capital introducing Hiro III, a new UK and Europe-focused fund, which is aimed at one of the continent’s longest-standing problems of a shortage of scale-up capital that can provide support to deep-tech and frontier-tech startups during their transition from early-stage breakthroughs to global commercial growth. The venture capital fund intends to raise more than half a billion dollars with plans to make investments that range from 5 to 50 million euros growth stages.
A Strategic Bet on Spatial Computing, Defence Tech and Robotics
As per Hiro III, it would zero in on the technologies at the core of what numerous industry experts have pointed to as the next significant computing shift: spatial AI, robotics, defence technologies, immersive computing, next-generation 3D interfaces, and world-model-based AI systems. These technology areas have become very popular in recent times, and the growth is being fuelled by the evolving multimodal AI, the maturing AR/VR hardware, and the geopolitical pressures that make Europe have to build up its sovereign capabilities in defence and automation.
The fund is a continuation of Hiro Capital’s current portfolio that since its inception in 2018 has been centered on gaming, metaverse platforms, esports, and interactive entertainment. The firm has been investing in the UK, Europe, and North America and has been supporting the companies that work at the intersection of creative content and breakthrough technology.
Hiro Capital came into existence thanks to the founding team of industry heavyweights: Luke Alvarez, the co-founder of Nasdaq-listed games and virtual sports firm Inspired Entertainment; Sir Ian Livingstone, a veteran game developer and former chairman of the studio behind Tomb Raider; and Cherry Freeman, the co-founder of craft marketplace LoveCrafts.
Nick Clegg: “We will move from staring at the internet to living in the internet”
The announcement of Clegg as a general partner may be considered a significant change after his time as the president of global affairs at Meta, where he was a key figure in navigating the company through political, regulatory, and platform-governance challenges. Though we don’t know how much time he will allocate to Hiro, his impact on European policy, global tech regulation, and platform governance is like adding a catalytic agent to the firm’s strategic ambitions.
On his decision to come to Hiro, Clegg said:
I came to Hiro because the founders and I shared the same vision of immersive computing and Spatial AI booming. We will no longer be staring at the internet, but living in the internet. The convergence of spatial technologies and next-generation world model AIs places us right at the beginning of that platform shift.
He also emphasized Europe’s long-standing problem of having an innovation engine that is constrained by the shortage of late-stage investment.
“Our problem is not a lack of innovation but a lack of capital at scale.” Clegg stated Europe’s top universities, AI researchers and engineering talents would make the continent a perfect place for a tech boom if only the funding gap could be bridged.
Yann LeCun: “The next phase of AI will understand and reason about the physical world”
LeCun, a pioneer of deep learning and a Turing Award laureate, is the deep technical side to news Hiro is doubling down on AI-heavy investments. Reflecting on his advisory position, he said:
“We are entering a new phase of AI – an era of systems which can comprehend the physical world, possess persistent memory, and have the capability to reason and plan complex actions.”
He was also quite supportive of Hiro’s pioneering role in investing in spatial technologies, 3D systems, wearables, and gaming, saying it made the company well prepared to take advantage of Europe’s coming AI.
Hiro III is unveiling at a very important time for the European tech scene. While the continent remains a hotbed of world-class research and early-stage startups, the reality is that European founders are often hard-pressed to secure large growth-stage rounds that will enable them to vie with the well-funded US and Asian-backed players. This “scaleup gap” has for a long time been cited as the reason why the continent is behind in creating tech giants.
Through combining deep-tech knowledge with high-profile leadership, Hiro Capital is seeking to create a link between local early-stage innovations and global scaling while enabling Europe to have a stronger presence in sectors that will shape the next decade of computing.