Thomas Hoegh, one of Europe’s go-to guys for spotting hot Internet companies and entrepreneurs, never wanted to be a venture capitalist. In fact, until four years ago, he didn’t even know what venture capital was. Trained as a theater director, Hoegh had coordinated rock concerts and public events, such as the one-year-anniversary celebration of the 1993 Oslo peace accord between Israel and Palestine, and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1994 Winter Olympics, in Lillehammer, Norway.
These days, Hoegh (pronounced “hoag”), 34, is working behind the scenes on another public spectacle: the startup-and-IPO boom. Shedding his all-black wardrobe and waist-length strawberry-blond hair, Hoegh has created a strategy for building Internet companies that is generating lots of attention — and eye-popping returns — in both Europe and the United States.
His firm, Arts Alliance Ltd., with offices in London and New York (and with a laboratory in San Francisco), has assembled an investment portfolio that includes three of Europe’s hottest Net companies — Chateau-Online, Interactive Investor, and lastminute.com — as well as high-profile U.S. holdings that have been sold to Amazon.com and to America Online. Hoegh’s secret: advocating for users the same way that a director advocates for an audience.
“In theater, there’s a sense of immediacy and a closeness to the audience that is directly applicable to the Web,” says Hoegh. “Both in the theater and on the Web, there’s a strong correlation between connecting to the audience and creating a successful enterprise.”
