Huddle co-founder Andy McLoughlin exits to join VC firm

Huddle co-founder Andy McLoughlin, a 2009 Growing Business Young Gun, has announced that he’s leaving the company to join a Silicon Valley venture capital (VC) firm.

The British entrepreneur, who moved to California to run Huddle’s US operations,  is joining ‘micro VC’ SoftTech which backs early stage fledgling start-ups – though he will remain on Huddle’s board.

The announcement comes just weeks after the company’s other co-founder and Young Gun Alistair Mitchell stepped down as chief executive to take up the new role of president and chief marketing officer. He was replaced by tech industry veteran Morten Brøgger, who has been hired to help the platform fulfill its global ambitions to rival Dropbox, Box and Microsoft.

Founded in 2006, the London-based enterprise content collaboration platform allows businesses to share documents stored on the cloud using any device. Huddle raised an impressive $51m in funding last December, which valued the company between $250m-$300m but has apparently not yet turned a profit.

SoftTech has invested in more than 160 companies to date, including social media group Wildfire, fitness gadget Fitbit and London-based concert listings site Songkick.

McLoughlin has already backed 35 companies as a prolific angel investor, including UK-based start-ups Secret Escapes, and fashion technology group Thread. The entrepreneur will focus on US investments but said he will use his connections to help British start-ups that want to make the move to Silicon Valley.