Just a few weeks after its third financing effort was unveiled, sources informed TechCrunch about a notable development at the London-based growing investment group, which is welcoming a new key partner. Julien Codorniou is leaving Felix Capital, where he served as a founding adviser starting in 2015 and became a partner by 2021, to join 20VC and focus on early-stage investments.

Harry Stebbings founded 20VC in 2020 as the investment branch stemming from his popular podcast. Originally, the podcast consisted of 20-minute sessions featuring interviews with entrepreneurs, financiers, and industry figures; and 20VC, beginning with a starting fund of $8.3 million, was initially envisioned as a “mini VC”: Stebbings aimed to provide smaller investments alongside bigger contributors, offering expertise and guidance on growth in addition to capital.

However, much like Stebbings’ discussions have now gone beyond the initial 20 minutes, 20VC has similarly grown. By 2021, it closed a funding round totaling $140 million. Recently, just two months back, the third round saw 20VC securing $400 million. Out of this fund, almost $125 million is aimed at seed-stage investments, while nearly $275 million is allocated for Series A investments.

Considering the current rarity of acquisitions and even less common IPOs in Europe, raising $400 million within the evolving tech scenario could be seen as quite an achievement. It further highlights that Stebbings has fostered a strong media foundation that can be leveraged for technology financing with effective networking impacts.

In recent months, 20VC has broadened its team to utilize the capital it has secured. Kieran Hill, who joined as a seed collaborator back in 2021, is accompanied by two more team members — Paul Bonnet (principal partner) and Alexandre Dewez (associate), who moved from DST Global and Eurazeo respectively earlier this year, targeting Series A and subsequent stages for 20VC.

The newest addition to the team is Julien Codorniou. He’s poised to become 20VC’s third key partner, emphasizing seed funding. This change marks a different course for him since Felix Capital typically leads investment rounds at a later phase.

While at Felix Capital, Codorniou was involved in funding rounds for Pigment, Omada, TechWolf, and Prediko and Agave — a gaming firm whose Series A was announced just yesterday. He is maintaining his board roles and remains a limited collaborator within Felix Capital. Additionally, he has acted as a business angel, investing his personal resources into ventures such as Bloom & Wild, Xentral, Homesome, Olio, Peanut, Nabla, Curio, Bits, and Sunday.

In his function as an angel backer, Codorniou also collaborated with Stebbings, both having shared investments in Tripledot Studios, BeReal, and Linktree.

Before stepping into his venture capital journey, Codorniou was part of Microsoft and later spent 11 years at Facebook (now recognized as Meta). During this time, he oversaw Workplace, a communication platform from Facebook designed for business users.