Robert Kniaz

Robert (Rob) Kniaz (born May 1979[1]) is an American venture capitalist based in London.[2] He is a co-founding partner of Hoxton Ventures, an early-stage investment firm (ranked #8 globally in the Founders Choice rankings for 2023[3]) and investing across Europe[4][5] and previously was an early Google product manager for AdSense.

History

Kniaz was a National Merit Scholarship recipient at St Mary's Ryken High School.[6] Subsequently, he graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.S. degree in Computer Science.[7] He studied at Stanford University and worked for Intel and was later an early product manager at Google in Silicon Valley where he led a team in the ads division focusing on the AdWords ad auction and Cost per action advertising (now known as Conversion Optimizer).[8][9]

Intellectual Property

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.[10][11]

This portfolio of patents has been cited 301 times in subsequent patents by others, largely in the online advertising field,[12] particularly around user-generated ads which was filed with investor Tomas Tunguz.

His notable patents include:

  • User-generated advertising, (2009, application abandoned).[13]
  • Syndicated trackable ad content, (2011).[14]
  • A method for selecting ad pricing model dynamically, (2013).[15]
  • Allowing publisher preference of ads shown, (2014).[16]
  • Identifying complementary ads, (2014).[17]
  • Determining ad value in selection, (2014).[18]

Hoxton Ventures

In 2014, Kniaz and Hussein Kanji founded Hoxton Ventures,[19] 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.[20] Along with his partner, he has been noted by Business Insider as one of Europe's "coolest tech investors" in 2018.[21] The firm has raised over $360m to date and was rated #8 in the world in the Founders Choice VC Leaderboard.[22]

The firm's notable investments include Deliveroo (now public as LSE:ROO),[23] Darktrace (now public as LSE:DARK),[24] Babylon Health (now public as NYSE:BBLN), SuperAwesome (acquired by Epic Games), Preply, Spacelift.io and numerous others.[25]

Technology

Kniaz is often cited in major news sources for commentary on the European venture capital ecosystem.[26][27] He also regularly comments on macroeconomic trends as they relate to the venture capital industry as well as international travel trends.[28]

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,[29] and Business Insider.[30][31][32]

He is a regular guest on BBC Radio[33] and BBC World Service TV news[34] on the impact of public sector technology companies (especially Google and Apple), as well as on CNBC television.[35]

He is also a regular contributor to Forbes Magazine on venture capital related topics.[36][37]

References
  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. "Rob Kniaz, Hoxton Ventures: Profile and Biography". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  5. "London's Hoxton Ventures has a new $215 million seed fund". Fortune. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  6. "MERIT SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS". The Washington Post.
  7. "Alum of the Week: Rob Kniaz, Co-Founder and Partner, Hoxton Ventures". www.cs.umd.edu. 2016-01-28. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  8. "Meet Rob Kniaz, AdSense Product Manager". Inside AdSense. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  9. US application 2008275757, Sharma, Abhinay; Chen, Kai & Kniaz, Rob et al., "Metric conversion for online advertising", published 2008-11-06, assigned to Google Inc., since abandoned.
  10. "Google Patents". patents.google.com. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  11. "Google Patents". patents.google.com. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  12. "Rob Kniaz". scholar.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  13. US application 20090112685, Tunguz-Zawislak, Tomasz J.; Kniaz, Rob & Ventilla, Max, "User generated advertising", published 2009-04-30, assigned to Google Inc., since abandoned.
  14. US 7996777, Kniaz, Rob; Sharma, Abhinay & Chen, Kai, "Syndicated trackable ad content", published 2011-08-09, assigned to Google Inc.
  15. 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.
  16. US 8768740, Kniaz, Robert; Sharma, Abhinay & Chen, Kai et al., "Publisher preference system for content selection", published 2014-07-01, assigned to Google Inc.
  17. 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.
  18. US 8799078, Kniaz, Robert, "Advertising value tools", published 2014-08-05, assigned to Google Inc.
  19. "Hoxton Ventures Fund I Announcement - Hoxton Ventures". www.hoxtonventures.com. 2013-12-02. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  20. usmedia (2018-05-21). "Europe's top Unicorn hunters". Dealroom.co. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  21. Ghosh, Shona. "The 36 coolest tech investors in the UK". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  22. Choice, Founder's. "Founder's Choice". founderschoicevc.com. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  23. "Deliveroo raises £2.75m to expand delivery of quality restaurant food across ..." Index Ventures. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  24. "Darktrace Raises $18M to Fund Global Expansion • Darktrace Newsroom". darktrace.com. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  25. "Portfolio - Hoxton Ventures". www.hoxtonventures.com. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  26. "British Tech Students Shunning Silicon Valley".
  27. "Hoxton Ventures takes aim at Europe's Unicorns". Red Herring. 2015-11-30. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  28. Kharpal, Arjun (18 September 2015). "Interest rate worries? Tech VCs are handling it". CNBC. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  29. 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)
  30. Ghosh, Shona. "Theresa May wants to make up for a potentially massive shortfall in UK VC funding". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  31. Haworth, Elliott (2016-09-23). "Brand Britain: How will Brexit affect our image abroad?". CityAM. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  32. "British CEOs Bemoan Election Disaster". Bloomberg.com. 2017-06-09. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  33. "BBC Radio 4 - Today, 27/02/2017". BBC. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  34. "BBC World Service - World Business Report, UK and EU Agree Brexit Transition Terms". BBC. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  35. "Apple executing according to plan: Pro". CNBC. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  36. Kniaz, Rob. "What's Next In Grocery Disruption After QCommerce?". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  37. "Rob Kniaz". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
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