E540 | EUVC Summit 2025 | Hall of Fame: Honoring Robin Klein

This year at the EUVC Summit Awards, Robin Klein was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Backed by HSBC Innovation Banking, the award celebrates a lifetime of impact—and Robin’s legacy stands as a blueprint for what long-term conviction in European tech can look like.

As Chris Adelsbach reminded us on stage, we’re no longer an emerging ecosystem. We’ve grown up. And few have helped shape that growth more consistently, more humbly, and more powerfully than Robin.

A Legacy That Began Before Venture Had a Name

Robin’s story doesn’t begin with startups—it begins with family, migration, and belief.

A century ago, his grandfather left Eastern Europe for South Africa. Years later, he handed over his life savings to a young engineer—Robin—to start a business. That first act of belief, Robin said, was venture capital before we had the word for it.

From there, the journey spanned decades:

→ Two companies built and exited.
→ A pivot to angel investing in 1999.
→ A front-row seat to the power law—and the human stories behind it.

From Fledgling Angels to a $2B Platform

What followed was a fundamental reshaping of Europe’s innovation landscape.

Across LocalGlobe, Latitude, and Solar, Robin and his team have helped founders build not only unicorns—but also communities, movements, and ecosystems. They’ve backed science and inclusion, food banks and frontier tech, with LPs from both East and West. Today, their platform manages nearly $2 billion.

And through it all, one belief has remained constant:Innovation and technology are forces for good—capable of delivering stellar returns to LPs, and positive change to society.

A Call to Builders—And the FutureRobin closed by thanking his grandfather—the original backer—and his son and partner, who now help lead the next generation forward.

His message to the room was clear:We have the talent, the universities, the engineers. We have the moment.

The time is now.

Thanks to the foundations we’ve laid— the best is still ahead.