In a further sign European tech VCs are looking to give their companies U.S. scale and to invest in American startups, Britain’s Index Ventures is opening a permanent Bay Area office in San Francisco.
Its London partners Danny Rimer and Mike Volpi, the former CEO of Index portfolio firm Joost, will be running the office, Index’s fourth.
“There’s literally one of us in the Bay Area, New York or LA almost every week. But, we believe that venture capital requires true global focus,” Volpi blogs.
“While we’ve been encouraged by the progress we’ve made, we feel we can do a better job of supporting the entrepreneurs we work with both in Europe and the US by having a permanent presence in the Bay Area.”
Volpi says Index has invested in more than 58 companies which started in the U.S. and 35 European companies which crossed the pond.
Index investments include OpenX, Flipboard, Last.fm, Stardoll, Mind Candy, Go Try It On, Lovefilm and Sonos.
One of Index’s current main lines of investment interest appears to be cloud-centric premium and freemium services. It’s also interested in capturing places where people share their shopping habits and recommendations.
Volpi’s a former HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) senior exec, Rimer a former Barksdale partner and H&Q MD.
Atlas Venture moved its future focus out of Europe to Boston last year.