News

May 25, 2023

Blossom Capital loses its fourth partner in five years

Managing partner Alex Lim is set to leave at the end of the month — and won't be replaced

Amy Lewin

2 min read

Blossom Capital, the London-based VC firm, has lost its fourth partner in five years.

Alex Lim, who joined Blossom as a managing partner in 2021 from US VC firm IVP, will be leaving at the end of May.

“We spent two years together and it’s been a great run, and we’ve put in a lot of effort together, professionally, personally trying to make the partnership work, and we’ve concluded as adults that it’s just not the best fit for either of us,” founding partner Ophelia Brown, who launched Blossom in 2018, tells Sifted on this week's episode of the Sifted Podcast. 

“I think people will flourish in certain firms, and not flourish in others.” 

"I remain a supporter of Blossom, and wish them all the best going forward," Lim tells Sifted.

Former partners

Blossom, which has backed notable European startups like Checkout.com, Moonpay, Tines and Pigment, has had several partners in its short life.

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When the firm launched in 2018, it had three partners: Brown, formerly a partner at LocalGlobe and an investor at Index Ventures; Imran Ghory, her former colleague at Index; and former Uber exec Candice Lo. 

Lo left the firm after a year, in March 2019. 

Former Klarna exec Louise Samet joined Blossom as a partner in February 2019, and left in October 2020. 

Carmen Rico, formerly a partner at Samaipata, joined Blossom as a partner in October 2020 and left a year later. She has since set up seed-stage fund Cocoa. 

When Blossom launched, the then Deliveroo CTO Mike Hudack was a venture partner at the firm. He then joined Monzo as chief product officer in March 2020, and does not have his time at Blossom listed on his LinkedIn profile. 

“We’ve had our own learnings along the way," Brown says. "Louise was in Sweden, and we’ve learnt that an in-office culture is really important when you’re making decisions that quickly. Louise is phenomenally bright and a great investor; it’s very hard to make venture work, we’ve found, across office. Carmen is doing phenomenally well with Cocoa; she’s a great seed investor. That’s different from a high-conviction Series A strategy.” 

New associates

Blossom will, instead of hiring a new partner, hire two associates this summer, Brown tells Sifted. 

“Imran and I learnt that model at Index — and we feel that now at Blossom, years in, we have the institutional muscle and processes to really enable a next generation to be successful.”  

Sifted contacted everyone mentioned in this article for comment.

Amy Lewin

Amy Lewin is Sifted’s editor and host of Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast , and writes Up Round, a weekly newsletter on VC. Follow her on X and LinkedIn