Ben is a Partner on the investment team at Atomico, where he leads investments in Enterprise software (SaaS) companies.
Ben Blume
Ben is a Partner on the investment team at Atomico, where he leads investments in Enterprise software (SaaS) companies.
Ben’s the guy I call at 8 or 9pm at night when there’s something I really need to talk through. He’s been with us for 107x growth in valuation, he’s seen it all.
I love working with product-obsessed companies building incredible solutions enabled by powerful technologies like machine learning and intelligent automation. I believe these ‘10x’ products can shake up industries and create categories.
I’ve been fascinated by technology my whole life.
As a kid I wrote countless lines of code, spent many days battling to configure linux web servers, and built web applications for small businesses. I was able to learn the fundamentals at university at Queens’ College, Cambridge from where I hold a first class BA in Computer Science, and also spent time as a software engineer at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
In 2013, Atomico took a chance on me.
I was working at Bain & Company, and they opened a door for me into the nascent world of European venture. Since then, they have mentored and developed me, giving me as much opportunity as I could take. The risk–for both of us–has paid off. I’m proud to be an Atomico partner and I love this job.
People ask me what keeps me at Atomico year after year.
The significant ambition for where we are heading and our willingness to have anyone in the organisation challenge and improve anything we do, have meant I have always felt I was working somewhere with momentum and growth. At each stage I’ve been given new and challenging opportunities, meaning no two years have been the same.
I look at companies developing both horizontal infrastructure and applications, and vertically-focussed software and solutions.
I get excited by companies doing amazing things with technology, and companies with solutions which wow their users. I spend a lot of time looking at companies building in less-digitised industries like manufacturing and construction, where I believe technology can have a huge positive impact.
We see Intelligent Automation upgrading existing software with better more powerful solutions, replacing the need for services through simpler self configuring tools, and taking on whole new categories of task not previously possible. Horizontal software categories like Hyperautomation (where we have invested in Automation Hero), Negotiation Automation (where we have invested in Pactum), Document Understanding and Conversation Automation are growing fast and each have a number of unicorn status companies generating tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. Industry verticals also have significant potential for focussed Intelligent Automation, solutions such as our investments in Spacemaker in the real estate space.
I led Atomico’s investments into, and currently sit on the boards of, Pactum, Katana, Onna, Automation Hero and Quit Genius, and also sit on the board of Hinge Health and Bitmovin.
Having been at Atomico since 2013, I’ve been fortunate to spend time working with companies over their journeys from Series A/B to Unicorn status, including Hinge Health and Graphcore. I’ve also seen one journey end to end, having led Atomico’s investment into Spacemaker, which was successfully acquired by Autodesk in 2020.
I see my role as being a sounding board to founders.
Something I’ve learned along the way is that founders can benefit from someone who challenges them in the right way and sense-checks big decisions. This is a role an experienced investor like us can play, as we have a very different vantage point to that of the people running the business every day.
As an investor into Spacemaker, we have had the pleasure of working very closely together with Ben Blume. Through highs, lows and flats, our partnership has been nothing but constructive, analytically robust and — importantly — fun. Our journey to exit was fast, but it established a friendship for the future.
When Atomico invests, what you get from us, is all of us.
It’s the thing I’m most proud of. We take a many-to-many approach. On top of the capital and network we provide, we make sure that anyone on our team is there to jump in to help anyone on yours.
Food is incredibly important to me, and I have a very sweet tooth.
I love nothing more than sitting around a table with family, friends or colleagues, plates piled high with food to share and enjoy. I use cooking as a way to unwind, create, and spend time away from my computer. I have a particular soft spot for baked goods, whether fresh out of the oven when I’ve made them myself, or when caught with my hand in the office cookie jar!
