Simon Murdoch, Founder of Episode 1

In this episode we were joined by Simon Murdoch, Founder of early stage European technology VC, Episode 1. Simon discusses his background and experience that led him to becoming an entrepreneur and later an investor at Episode1, what he brings to the companies he works with, and insights into what he looks for in founders. Simon sold his first company BookPages to Amazon in 1998 after which he reported to Jeff Bezos as VP Europe of Amazon.com. In early 2000, Simon founded and ran Chase Episode 1, an early stage European technology VC fund backed by JP Morgan Chase. The fund made over 3x return after all fees and carry. Chase Episode 1 included investments in BetFair (IPO 2010) and ScanSafe (sold to Cisco 2009). After the fund Simon became a full-time angel investor. His angel portfolio includes/included investments in Shazam, Zoopla (IPO 2014), LoveFilm (sold to Amazon 2011), Shutl (sold to eBay 2013), and Natural Motion (sold to Zynga 2014). In addition, from 2010 to 2012, Simon worked at Octopus Ventures in portfolio development. Simon has a BA in Physics from Cambridge and a PhD in Computer Science and Expert Systems.