Charlie Songhurst
Charlie Songhurst is a prolific tech investor who has personally invested in nearly 500 companies throughout his career. He is the Founding Partner of Katana Capital, a long-short equity hedge fund, and runs the Songhurst Group, which holds assets in a variety of private companies. Songhurst has extensive experience across enterprise SaaS, artificial intelligence, and deep tech, including serving as the General Manager and Head of Global Corporate Strategy at Microsoft, where he focused on partnerships and mergers and acquisitions. He led Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo and Skype, and focused on the emergence of Google and the growth of the search industry.
Charlie Songhurst Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
-
Founding Partner
-
General Manager and Head of Corporate Strategy
-
General Manager
Academic History
-
B.A., Philosophy, Politics and Economics
NOTABLE INVESTMENTS
His portfolio contains artificial intelligence, deep tech, financial technology, biotechnology, and quantum companies.
Alongside his private investment portfolio, Songhurst is a partner and co-investor with Acequia Capital and an investment partner at Nyca Capital.
His board member positions include Proteus Digital Health, Transit Capital, SafeGraph, CodeSign and Beauhurst. As an advisor he has worked with SheeldMarket, Veratrak, OpenGov, and Mighty AI.
His portfolio includes six unicorns: Rigetti Computing, Formlabs, Convoy, Tractable, Karat, and Side, while the unicorns ClassPass and Grove Collaborative have already exited.
Songhurst ran corporate strategy for Microsoft and focused on partnerships and M&A.
Notably, he played a pivotal role in Microsoft's $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype. Alongside Bill Gates, he negotiated Microsoft's entry into Facebook.
He also focused on the emergence of Google and the growth of the search industry.