Huddle’s Andy McLoughlin joins SoftTech VC

All of us at SoftTech are excited to announce that Andy McLoughlin (LinkedIn) will join us as a full-time Venture Partner on April 1st, 2015.

In 2006, Andy co-founded London-based Huddle, an enterprise content collaboration company which has raised over $80M to date. Over the years, he led technology, product, marketing, and strategy, eventually moving to San Francisco in 2010 to establish the company’s US presence.

About five years ago, Andy started his angel investing career. He has built a portfolio of 35+ pre-seed/seed stage investments, mostly in the Saas/B2B space but also covering e-commerce and mobile. He was the very first angel in our own Postmates. His other angel deals include Secret Escapes, Apiary, Tray.io, Buffer, Intercom, and Pipedrive.

When we spoke to founders he backed, Andy was consistently praised for the quality and relevance of his advice, and the value add he was able to deliver despite having “a day job”. We can’t wait to have him work with a number of our Saas companies on Sales, Marketing, Product, Growth,… and of course invest in awesome new opportunities.

Adding a new member to the investment team of a VC firm is tricky, especially in the context of a small operation. As our friend Mark Suster recently related, one needs to think about the assets, expertise, connections brought to bare by the existing team, and what a new addition will contribute to that mix. After SoftTech started its shift towards B2B with Fund III, we felt that adding a former Saas founder whose company has gone through several stages of scale would bring the most value to our portfolio companies. We also wanted someone with a substantial angel investment experience, and track record — learning on your own dime, both wins and losses, is truly formative. We got extremely lucky that Andy was the perfect match, fulfilling these two requirements, sharing our values and being all around awesome. We can’t wait for him to get started.

I also want to share some news about Charles Hudson. After nearly five years spent with SoftTech investing Fund III and the first year of Fund IV, Charles has decided to spin out and start his own pre-seed firm. Over the last couple of years, Charles has been keen on very early stage teams and ideas while SoftTech has anchored on the more mature, larger seed opportunities where you have seen us invest.

After discussing the situation and his personal interests, Charles has decided to start his own firm, with my support, focusing on the part of the market where his passion lies. In the interim, he will maintain responsibility for his current SoftTech companies. On October 1st, Charles will switch to a part-time, one day a week schedule until the end of Fund IV’s investment period. He will remain a close friend and advisor of our firm in the years to come.

Please join Stephanie and me in welcoming Andy to the SoftTech family and wishing the best to Charles!