Continental European VC fund Singular has appointed Laura McGinnis, previously a Principal at Balderton Capital, as its new Partner in London, its first in three years, adding senior investing firepower. The move comes as the firm pushes deeper into the UK and the wider European market, and just as the UK’s venture dealflow hits almost record levels.
McGinnis joins from Balderton Capital, where she joined in 2022 as a principal, investing in companies including Grand Games, Lawhive, Coro Cyber, Tilt and Sylvera.
“Balderton gave me a very high bar for what great venture looks like,” McGinnis said in a call with Pathfounders.
A spokesperson for Balderton said McGinnis “is a brilliant investor and we were sad to see her go, but also happy to see her to step up into a Partner role at a strong fund.”
Before venture, McGinnis worked in operating roles in the US, across product, commerce, go-to-market and brand at companies including Away and H&M.
The appointment gives Singular a more permanent senior presence in London, although the firm says the UK is not a new market for it.
She said Singular “felt like the kind of fund I would want to back myself, young, sharp, agile,” she said.
Commenting, Carolina Neri, who leads on brand and marketing at Singular, said “We have been operating in the London market since Singular launched in 2020, so it’s not at all a new market for us. The team has always rotated between London, Paris and the rest of Europe.”
Singular, founded in 2020, invests from Seed to Series B and has backed companies including cybersecurity unicorn Aikido, AI life sciences company Basecamp Research and Vibe, the adtech platform acquired by Walmart.
Neri said Singular’s pitch is not to chase fashionable sectors, but to make fewer, higher-conviction bets. “We are stock pickers in a world of index funds,” she said. “We don’t tend to follow trends. We develop a very strong conviction, and then we go full in.”
That approach, she said, means “more than 50%” of Singular’s deals are pre-empted. She pointed to French AdTech startup Vibe.co, which raised €42 million and was acquired by Walmart in June, as an example: “Adtech is not necessarily the sexiest, hottest sector out there, but we backed Vibe very early on.”
McGinnis said the UK now offers both volume and ambition. “London and the UK in general have some of the highest volumes of dealflow in Europe, by far,” she said. “Most of the companies out of London or out of the UK are global day one across UK-US.”
But she said the role is not just about London. She plans to spend time in Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Belfast and Edinburgh, where she said “there are some killer companies coming out.”
The hire also comes as Singular sharpens its focus around AI, though Neri stressed the firm remains generalist. One area of interest is “the intersection of AI and science,” she said, citing Basecamp Research, which she described as building “the ChatGPT for biology,” and other companies applying AI to life sciences and oncology.
McGinnis said her US operating background could help European founders expand across the Atlantic, but rejected the idea that Singular’s playbook is to push companies to relocate. “It’s not about flipping to the Valley,” she said. “It’s more that I can come with a killer network, should you want it.”
Singular’s last London-based Partner was Nahu Ghebremichael, who now based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
