Creandum Hires In-house Data Scientist As Asset To Share

    Swedish venture capital firm Creandum said on Tuesday it has hired William James as an in-house data specialist to help implement a data-first mindset in its portfolio companies.

    Swedish venture capital firm Creandum said on Tuesday it has hired William James as an in-house data specialist to help implement a data-first mindset. James was part of the original Spotify team who built the framework used to track and measure in-app actions by users – instrumental for growth of the music service.

    “Put simply, this focus on data helped the company see for the first time how users were really interacting with the music streaming service,” Creandum said in a statement. That enabled Spotify to focus on the features that drove value.

    Creandum is one of the top Nordic VCs with assets of 300 million euros under management. It has invested in more than 45 companies, including Spotify, Tictail, iZettle, and Vivino.

    We have seen a number of VC firms trying to widen their offering from beyond just cash to share resources across the portfolio, but surely also to keep a closer tap on the portfolio companies.

    “Our goal is to be hands-down the best local partner for European startups with high growth potential. We’ve seen how Spotify – one of our portfolio companies – has scaled up quickly thanks to a true data science priority, and we believe more of our companies can benefit from William’s experience,” said Johan Brenner, General Partner at Creandum. “We work hard to support our portfolio companies in and out of the board room and with our US presence, but there are some areas with core knowledge we need specific talent – advanced data science and infrastructure is one.”