# Tony Askew

> Tony Askew is a Series B investor at Activate Networks backing Analytics and Software. See 12 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Activate Networks](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/mednetworks)
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 12
- Last investment: Jul 2015
- Lead investor: 33%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tony-askew/0/13/385
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/TonyAskew

Tony Askew is a Series B investor at Activate Networks in San Francisco focused on Analytics and Software. Tony has over twenty years experience of building and financing digital media and technology businesses. He was a founding partner of Reed Elsevier Ventures in 2000 and focuses on digital media, Internet and big data & technology investments.Previously Tony was at SOFTBANK/ News Corporation’s European joint venture fund, eVentures.Prior to this Tony was a Partner in the media and telecoms practice of Arthur Andersen. Before this Tony was a founder member of mobile internet group at Cellnet (now O2) and an executive with Random House responsible for digital ventures.Tony started his career with PriceWaterhouse in London.Tony actively serves on the boards of Activate Networks, Babbel, Spacecurve, Tolven & Treato. Previously, Tony served as a board director with Babylon (public: TASE), Siperian (acquired by Informatica), Partminer (acquired by IHS), iPhrase (acquired by IBM), Intraspect (acquired by Vignette), and SRD (acquired by IBM) and as a board observer with AllBusiness.com (acquired by Dun and Bradstreet), Business.com (acquired by RH Donnelly) and Netli (acquired by Akamai).Tony is also an active investor in Palantir, GigaOM, Healthline, Intelligize, FINA, Martini Media, Struq, Ycharts and Seedcamp.Tony holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Royal Holloway College, London.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Analytics | 4 | 33% |
| Software | 3 | 25% |
| Enterprise Software | 3 | 25% |
| Mobile | 2 | 17% |
| Big Data | 2 | 17% |

30 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series B | 5 | 42% |
| Seed | 2 | 17% |
| Series C | 2 | 17% |
| Funding Round | 2 | 17% |
| Series E | 1 | 8% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 6 | 50% |
| Israel | 1 | 8% |
| Germany | 1 | 8% |
| Australia | 1 | 8% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Babbel | Babbel was founded in 2007, Babbel is the world’s first language learning app. A leader in the online language learning industry, Babbel is an international success with millions of active subscribers and ranked as the world’s #1 innovative company in education. Their meticulously designed courses guarantee you language skills you can use rightaway. Babbel is the shortest path to real-life conversations; 73% of their users indicated that they’d be able to have a short, simple conversation in their new language within five hours of using Babbel.The Babbel language learning app for web, iOS and Android makes it easy to learn 14 different languages from 7 display languages. Bite-sized lessons fit into everyday life and are split into useful real-world topics, from introducing oneself, to ordering food and making travel arrangements. The app’s effective game mechanics ensure that learners stay motivated to achieve their goals, with the average user continuing to learn with Babbel for more than 12 months. Uniquely, every course is created specifically for each language pair by a team of education experts, linguists and language teachers. Fast Company Magazine recognised Babbel as the most innovative education company of 2016. | $22M | Series C | Jul 08, 2015 |  |
| Agworld | Agworld, with offices in Perth, Australia, Windsor, CO and Sacramento, CA, provides services in Australia, USA, New Zealand and South Africa with a unique data capture and management platform connecting all major players in the agricultural industry. Agworld allows its users to collect data at all levels and seamlessly share this data with anyonethat is important to them. Agworld users are able to make more profitable decisions due to the data available to them than if they didn't use Agworld. Agworld is available on any iOS device as well as web browser. The Agworld platform is integrated with many other industry players and allows its users to import data from many sources and use this for analyses and reporting. | $3.9M | Series C | Aug 11, 2014 |  |
| Fingerprint | Fingerprint is a mobile technology company that develops, operates, and licenses subscription content services for children in Education and Entertainment on an enterprise and direct to consumer basis. The company's content library includes over 4000 premium Apps, Games, Books, and Videos licensed from over 350 developer partners in 60countries. Fingerprint's platform solution has been deployed across a range of customers including Samsung US, Samsung SE Asia, Verizon, Astro Malaysia, Sylvan Learning Center, Excelligence Learning, Highlights for Children and more. | $10.9M | Series B | Jun 25, 2014 |  |
| SpaceCurve | SpaceCurve offers a parallel data platform for the Internet of Things that ingests, processes, and analyzes IoT data in real-time. The SpaceCurve platform concurrently ingests, fuses, and analyzes streaming data from the Internet of Things, Industrial Internet, social media, mobile, weather, and other sources with historical data at petabytescales to allow organizations to continuously create value from data as fast as data is created.Space Curve was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA. | $5M | Series B | Jun 18, 2013 |  |
| Heavybit | Heavybit is the leading early-stage investor in enterprise infrastructure. Since 2013, we've helped launch and scale visionary technical startups—from DevSecOps and feature flagging to AI code generation and beyond. We go hands-on from day 0, backing founders as they turn code into companies and build the future of software from the bottom upto the top down. |  |  | May 01, 2013 |  |
| Treato | Treato automatically collects the massive amount of patient-written health experiences from blogs and forums and, with advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP), extracts relevant information, connects the dots and creates the big picture of what people say about their medications and conditions.Treato's big data analytics are availablein a consumer site and as an in-depth service for pharmaceutical marketers.Treato's Consumer site ( | $14.5M | Series B | Apr 23, 2013 |  |
| Babbel | Babbel was founded in 2007, Babbel is the world’s first language learning app. A leader in the online language learning industry, Babbel is an international success with millions of active subscribers and ranked as the world’s #1 innovative company in education. Their meticulously designed courses guarantee you language skills you can use rightaway. Babbel is the shortest path to real-life conversations; 73% of their users indicated that they’d be able to have a short, simple conversation in their new language within five hours of using Babbel.The Babbel language learning app for web, iOS and Android makes it easy to learn 14 different languages from 7 display languages. Bite-sized lessons fit into everyday life and are split into useful real-world topics, from introducing oneself, to ordering food and making travel arrangements. The app’s effective game mechanics ensure that learners stay motivated to achieve their goals, with the average user continuing to learn with Babbel for more than 12 months. Uniquely, every course is created specifically for each language pair by a team of education experts, linguists and language teachers. Fast Company Magazine recognised Babbel as the most innovative education company of 2016. | $10M | Series B | Mar 26, 2013 |  |
| Activate Networks | Activate Networks, Inc. is a network analytics company that identifies and understands the key social connections that drive commercial, organizational, and health results. Activate Networks' suite of analytics products and software enables organizations to unlock the commercial value of their customer, prospect, voter, and employee real-worldsocial networks commonly using data already available in the organization.Activate Networks maps, analyzes, and activates networks across a range of industry verticals, from healthcare to technology, to political campaigns and professional services. Our powerful proprietary RealConnect™ social network analytics platform creates unique, actionable insights that have a direct, measurable impact on marketing campaigns, health-behavior change programs, talent management, innovation, and more. | $10M | Series B | Nov 13, 2012 |  |
| Fingerprint | Fingerprint is a mobile technology company that develops, operates, and licenses subscription content services for children in Education and Entertainment on an enterprise and direct to consumer basis. The company's content library includes over 4000 premium Apps, Games, Books, and Videos licensed from over 350 developer partners in 60countries. Fingerprint's platform solution has been deployed across a range of customers including Samsung US, Samsung SE Asia, Verizon, Astro Malaysia, Sylvan Learning Center, Excelligence Learning, Highlights for Children and more. | $1.4M | Seed | Apr 01, 2011 |  |
| SpaceCurve | SpaceCurve offers a parallel data platform for the Internet of Things that ingests, processes, and analyzes IoT data in real-time. The SpaceCurve platform concurrently ingests, fuses, and analyzes streaming data from the Internet of Things, Industrial Internet, social media, mobile, weather, and other sources with historical data at petabytescales to allow organizations to continuously create value from data as fast as data is created.Space Curve was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA. | $1.1M | Seed | Aug 26, 2010 |  |

10 of 12 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [IBB Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ibb) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [NGP Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/nokia-growth-partners) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Accel](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/accel) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Anthem Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/anthem-capital-management) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Anthem Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/anthem-venture-partners) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [ArrowPath Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/arrowpath-venture-partners) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About Activate Networks

VC Fund · Newton, United States

Activate Networks, Inc. is a network analytics company that identifies and understands the key social connections that drive commercial, organizational, and health results. Activate Networks' suite of analytics products and software enables organizations to unlock the commercial value of their customer, prospect, voter, and employee real-worldsocial networks commonly using data already available in the organization.Activate Networks maps, analyzes, and activates networks across a range of industry verticals, from healthcare to technology, to political campaigns and professional services. Our powerful proprietary RealConnect™ social network analytics platform creates unique, actionable insights that have a direct, measurable impact on marketing campaigns, health-behavior change programs, talent management, innovation, and more.

5 contacts available at Activate Networks.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Darren Bovie | Senior Sales Director | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/darren-bovie |
| Gerald J. Gallivan | Founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/gerald-j-gallivan |
| Nicholas Christakis | Founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/nicholas-christakis |
| Tony Askew | Board Member | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tony-askew |
| W. Cecyl Hobbs | Senior Vice President, Marketing and Business Development | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/w-cecyl-hobbs |

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- [General Catalyst](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/general-catalyst-partners) — VC Fund
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## FAQ

### What does Tony Askew invest in?

Tony Askew invests primarily in Analytics, Software and Enterprise Software startups, most often at Series B and Seed stage. Most of the 12 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did Tony Askew last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Tony Askew closed in Jul 2015. Shizune tracks 12 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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