About me
Investor, designer & entrepreneur, former architect.
Partner, Anthemis, Venture Capital. EIR, MRL Ventures (instigated project which became Yelp). Co-founder: Moreover.com, first news aggregator (acquired Verisign); Origins (acquired D.C. Thomson); Realtime Anywhere (one of UK's first Internet co's). Co-author, RSS.
Om Malik: "David...has a nasty habit of predicting the future before everyone else."
Designer, Researcher
My mission in life is to make sense of technological and economic trends, spotting investment opportunities where products exist and design opportunities where they don't.
I aim to be able to design anything from a door handle to a business. So far that has included buildings, interiors & set designs as an architect and business models, financial products, software products, websites & web standards working in technology.
As an architect, trained under Peter Cook (Archigram) and worked for Norman Foster (Apple 'spaceship' HQ) then stadium rock set designers, Fisher Park (Pink Floyd, U2). As a technologist, worked on Internet products since the beginning of the web in the mid 90s, co-founding four startups and two incubators.
+ Entrepreneur/Investor
10 years as a general partner in a $1.5b VC fund, Anthemis. Co-founder, four successful companies (RTA, Origins, Moreover, MRL ventures [Yelp]), in London, NY and San Francisco, typically leading product.
Mentored and taken board roles in several others, mostly startup and private companies, one public.
= Investment & Business Opportunity
I research and analyse products and markets to identify new investment opportunities or to help make them a reality if they don't exist.
This combination of product and business models is called Venture Design. This relatively new field of systems design is what I specialise in and helped develop.
For a detailed explanation of what venture design is and how it works, click on the link below.
Founder: Wists
Wists was the first social shopping site, in 2004, developing the concept behind Pinterest.
Co-founder: Moreover
Co-founded with Angus Bankes & Nick Denton, (Founder Gawker Media). Sold to Verisgn.
Co-founder: Realtime Anywhere
One of the first digital agencies, and the first Internet company, in London's 'Tech City'.
Services: Curations
A series of curated sites, that constituted some of the first product blogs.
Founder: Curations.com, Smashing Telly
Part of Curations.com, Smashing Telly was the first curated TV channel
UX: Standard Model of the Standard Model
Improved infographic of the standard model of physics, made at the CERN Webfest 2012, with Carsten Burgard
Architecture: Translucent Skyscraper
A design I did while working for Norman Foster for a skyscraper in London
Architecture: Building Within a Building
A modern wooden structure built inside an 18th Century barn to create a building within a building.
Architecture: retail and event designs
Working with clients such as Caterpillar and Coca Cola, I've produced a series of events and retail designs.
Landscape design: Industrial Park
Design for a park in a siding with rusting steam trains overgrown with plants.
Architecture: Millennium Bridge
A collaboration with Alex Oliver, shortlisted for a millennium competition.
Architecture: Jewish Museum, London
A collaboration with Opher Elia-Shaul for a proposed new building for the Jewish Museum in London