Greylock VC firm plans to expand into Europe with assistance from DeepMind co-founder.

• Suleyman, who was VP at Google and acquired DeepMind AI lab in 2014, announced last month that he was leaving to join Greylock as a venture partner.
• Suleyman stated in an email to CNBC that he plans to invest in Europe across various sectors and will frequently travel back. He particularly expressed interest in AI companies.
• Greylock has made profits from early investments in US tech giants such as Airbnb, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and now aims to invest in fast-growing European companies.

Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, aims to assist Greylock in discovering additional investment prospects in Europe, where the firm has only made a few investments up to now.

Suleyman, who was VP at Google and helped acquire DeepMind AI lab in 2014, announced he's leaving to join Greylock as a venture partner.

Suleyman stated in an email to CNBC that he plans to invest in Europe across various sectors and will frequently travel back. He is particularly interested in AI companies and aims to closely partner with founders to incubate the best teams.

Greylock has made profits from early investments in US tech giants such as Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but now wants to invest in fast-growing European companies. Unlike its rivals such as Sequoia, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greylock has not yet established a physical office in any European city.

Greylock's primary objective is to support tech founders with global aspirations, and we have made several investments in European companies, including Sqreen (acquired by DataDog) and Entrepreneur First, as stated by a Greylock spokesperson to CNBC.

In 2021, more than $675 billion was invested in start-ups worldwide by venture capitalists, surpassing the previous all-time high of 2020 by double, as per data from Dealroom and London & Partners.

Last year, Europe experienced a surge in VC activity, with investments reaching $115 billion, a marked increase from the $43.1 billion invested in 2020.

Despite being in their early stages, Europe's start-ups are not as large as those in the U.S. and Asia, which have giants like Google, Facebook, Alibaba, and Baidu.

ASML, a chip manufacturing machine maker from Europe, has a market cap of approximately $300 billion, making it the largest tech firm in the region. In contrast, several American companies are valued at over $1 trillion, with Apple briefly reaching a market cap of over $3 trillion last month.

Spotting the next DeepMind

Greylock is currently investing in start-ups from a $1.6 billion fund, with typical "day one checks" ranging from $2 million to $20 million.

The company is investing in start-ups across various industries, with a focus on identifying the next DeepMind.

The Greylock spokesperson stated that AI is a highly transformative industry in technology and there are numerous opportunities to invest in this field.

Mustafa has been leading progress in AI work over the last 10 years and is one of the most connected AI people in the global ecosystem. He will be a valuable resource and an ideal board member choice for founders building AI companies.

Suleyman has invested in various tech start-ups as an angel investor, including Dice, a gig ticketing platform based in London.

During Dice's early years, Suleyman was "vital" in numerous ways, according to Matt Miller, a tech entrepreneur and Ustwo co-founder who advises Dice.

After being accused of an aggressive management style by former colleagues at DeepMind, Suleyman left Google. A law firm was hired to investigate the allegations.

In 2017-2018, a few colleagues filed a complaint against Suleyman's management style, according to a podcast interview with Greylock partner Reid Hoffman. Suleyman admitted that he made a mistake and was too demanding and relentless, which created an unreasonable work environment with unrealistic expectations.