不走尋常路：從女工程師到英國風投女王

????艾琳?博比奇是倫敦最具影響力的風險投資家之一。這位來自美國的女性開創了一條有違常規的職業發展道路。她是一名訓練有素的軟件工程師，在硅谷積累了豐富的技術經驗，曾經先后供職于多家世界最知名的科技公司，其中包括蘋果、雅虎和太陽微系統公司。但在2004年，為了“迫使自己走出舒適區”，博比奇毅然前往倫敦，成為Skype最早的一批員工之一。

????后來，她與兩位合伙人一起成立了Passion Capital公司。它現已成為倫敦頂級的風險投資公司之一，但三位創始人其實都沒有傳統的金融業背景。作為一名風險投資家，博比奇采用了一種特立獨行的做法，宣稱她不會給“ 令人討厭的人”投資，她還為頗具爭議的約會應用Lulu（這款應用允許女性對男性評分）提供巨額資金支持。日前在接受《財富》官網采訪時，她暢談了自己的職業歷程、投資方式，以及她為何最看重創業者的激情。

????問：是什么激勵你前往倫敦，成為一名風險投資家？

????我在硅谷度過了不平凡的十年。但我卻感覺硅谷正在變得越來越封閉。我認為，自己或許應該進入“真實的世界”，或至少更廣闊的世界，于是我把目光投向倫敦。我很幸運地收到了Skype和音樂識別軟件Shazam的工作邀請，我選擇了Skype。我希望與瘋狂的夢想家一起共事。

????后來，我開始與幾位創建Ambient Sound Investments投資公司的原Skype工程師們合作，就這樣，我“一不小心”就成為一名風險投資家。我們在倫敦進行了四筆投資，其中有三筆是與斯蒂芬?格萊恩澤爾（他后來成為Passion Capital的合伙人之一）合作的。斯蒂芬和我意識到，我們或許可以在創業者/團隊/初創公司身上找到類似的特質，并為其估值，于是我們開始談論合作，并在倫敦成立了一家小型風投基金。

????問：你和另外兩位創始人羅伯特?迪哥希羅與斯蒂芬?格萊恩澤爾都有創業經歷，這些經歷對于你的投資方式有何影響？

????我們認為，我們可以更好地評估和理解創業者，有能力為創業者增添運營和戰略價值。

????在進行投資時，我們總是會考慮假如我們還是經營者，希望與什么樣的風險投資者合作。我們在2009年建立了一個聯合辦公場所，然后開始融資，最終于2011年3月份啟動價值6000萬美元的風險投資基金Passion Capital。

????當時，我們是東倫敦（創業者聚集的地區，現在被稱為“科技城”）唯一的風投公司。因為在歷史上，金融家們大多集中在梅菲爾區或倫敦的其他地區。我們也是唯一一家在聯合辦公場所運營的倫敦風險投資公司——我們與另外十個或十二個團隊共同使用這個開放空間。

????我們也是全世界第一家使用簡明英語風險投資協議的公司，并且我們不向投資公司重復收取任何法律費用，其實幾乎沒有任何費用。

????問：你能否解釋一下在確定符合投資條件的創業者時所遵循的標準？

????我們當然會驗證他們的創業計劃，他們希望解決的問題，以及他們是否理解執行計劃所需的能力。但我們也會關注一些軟性技能，比如萬丈雄心背后的動機。

????我發現，每一位優秀的創業者都心懷抱負，這讓他們充滿干勁。他們可能會遭遇極端的困難。招聘、解雇、組建團隊、應對挑戰和障礙、與更大的競爭對手競爭等，會讓他們承受巨大的壓力。因此，創業者必須擁有百折不撓的意志力，才能度過最艱難的階段。

????問：這是你投資Lulu的原因嗎？

????與我們的大多數投資一樣，我們之所以投資Lulu，是基于其創始人亞歷山德拉?莊的實力、雄心和愿景。她真的很杰出。最初，她希望為女性創建一個“安全私密的在線平臺”，彼此之間進行交際和互動，談論人際關系、財務、教育、工作或其他任何話題。

????但這個平臺正式推出后，所有內容和互動幾乎都集中在與男性約會這個話題上。于是，與其他天才創始人一樣，亞歷山德羅根據用戶的反饋，對最初的計劃進行了修改，致力于針對這一特定需求提供最佳用戶體驗，于是便有了這款極受歡迎的應用。

????現在美國幾乎四分之一的女大學生都在使用Lulu，它也在努力成為涉及不同話題、產品和主題的平臺，提供與這些話題相關的內容、交易和服務——最終又回到了亞歷山德羅當初的愿景，我很期待她的愿景實現的那一天。

????Eileen Burbidge, one of London’s most influential venture capitalists, is an American who built her career by going against convention. A software engineer by training, she earned her chops in Silicon Valley working for some of the world’s most prestigious tech companies, including Apple, Yahoo and Sun Microsystems. But then, she moved to London in 2004 to “push my comfort zone,” becoming one of Skype’s earliest employees.

????From there, she and two partners launched Passion Capital, a venture capital firm. It became one of London’s top VC firms — despite the fact that none of the cofounders have a traditional finance background. As a VC, Burbidge has taken a somewhat maverick approach, declaring she won’t invest in “jerks” and backing Lulu, a controversial dating app that allows women to rate men. She recently spoke to Fortune.com about her professional journey, her approach to investment and why she values passion above all else.

????Q: What inspired you to move to London and become a venture capitalist there?

????The ten years I was in Silicon Valley were phenomenal. However, Silicon Valley began to feel very insular to me. I thought it would be useful to get out “into the real world” or at least the wider world and I looked towards London. I was fortunate enough to secure job offers from both Skype and Shazam, and I went for Skype. I wanted to work with people who were crazy visionaries.

????I became an “accidental” VC in that I started working with the former Skype engineers who founded Ambient Sound Investments. We made four investments in London, three of which ended up being with Stefan Glaenzer [who became one of her Passion Capital partners.] Stefan and I realized we probably identify and value similar traits in founders/teams/startups, and so we started talking about working together and raising our own micro VC fund in London.

????Q: Given that you and your cofounders, Robert Dighero and Stefan Glaenzer, all have startup experience, how has that shaped your approach as VCs?

????We’d like to think that we’re able to assess and relate better to entrepreneurs and are better equipped to add operational and strategic value.

????We basically conduct ourselves [as the kind of company] we’d like to partner with if we were still operators ourselves. We started by establishing a co-working space in 2009 and then we were able to raise, close, and launch our $60 million fund, Passion Capital, in April 2011.

????At that time, we were the only London-based VC firm in East London (where the entrepreneurs are, now sometimes referred to as “Tech City”) as opposed to Mayfair or the other areas of London which is where financiers were historically located. And we were the only London VC with a co-working space — an open plan that we share with ten to twelve teams at any given time.

????We were also the first VC in the world to use a Plain English term sheet and to not re-charge any legal fees to our companies (no fees to a cap, literally no fees whatsoever).

????Q: Can you explain the criteria you use when deciding whether to back an entrepreneur?

????Of course we look to validate the proposition they’re planning, the problem they’re trying to solve, and their ability to understand the requirements to execute a plan. But we also look for even softer skills such as the motivation behind their ambition.

????What I’ve found is that every great entrepreneur has some driving ambition that fuels them. There will be extreme hardships. It’s super stressful to hire people, fire people, build a team, push through challenges and barriers, compete with larger players. So there has to be something that is emotionally anchored, deep-rooted and which will drive that founder through their most difficult days.

????Q: Is that why you invested in Lulu?

????Like most of our other investments, we invested in Lulu based on the strength, ambition and vision of its founder, Alexandra Chong, who is an absolute tour de force. Her original vision was to create a platform and “safe and private place online for women” to connect and interact with one another — whether it be about relationships, finances, education, work or any other topics.

????The key conclusion after its initial launch was that nearly all of the content and interactions focused exclusively on dating and guys. So as a consequence and like any genius founder, Alexandra seized on that user feedback and whittled the proposition down to offer the best user experience to address that demand — and that’s led to the massively popular app we have today.

????Now used by one out of every four college women in the US, Lulu is on its way to becoming a platform for providing content, transactions and services around a broad-range of topics, products and subject areas — coming full circle back to delivering on Alexandra’s vision which I’ll be excited to see.