Comment: Ecom Investor Balderton Refreshes Team Amid Rumours of New Investment Push

Balderton Capital, the private equity investor whose list of past and present investments reads like a Who's Who of UK ecommerce firms, has brought in new talent as it seeks to focus more heavily on early stage start-ups.

The investment firm has appointed blinkx founder Suranga Chandratillake as its newest general partner. His appointment comes amid talk that co-founding partner Barry Maloney plans to step down.

It also drafted in Wellington Partners' Daniel Waterhouse in October. Waterhouse spent five years at the firm, often providing the first institutional money in a number of fast-growing companies including Hailo, YPlan, SumAll, EyeEm and Qype, later sold to Yelp.

Techcrunch reckons that the management makeover is part of a refocus of Balderton's investments even more heavily on Series A funding rounds.

The slight shift in strategy can only mean that Balderton, whose UK investments have included Asos, The Hut and Worldstores, is sharpening its claws amid increasing interest in tech, internet and ecommerce start-ups from a wider range and larger firms.

Balderton and a handful of other tech investors had a lot of room to maneuver in the early years of the last decade when it broke away from US venture capital firm Benchmark Capital.

The only way to go it seems is down into the underground - seek out the new talent and, as Balderton said in a press release this week, 'identify and back the next generation of entrepreneurs'.

With one a former entrepreneur himself and the other a proven identifier of successful firms, Balderton clearly hopes Chandratillake and Waterhouse will be able to help it do just that.

For more on The Hut, see our Online Retail Stars of 2013 Report: The Hut.

Asos Reports ‘Strong’ Sales As It Gears Up For Global Expansion

Online fashion phenomenon Asos has reported 'another strong Christmas' in the UK and Europe as it gears up to take on the world's biggest markets.

The Camden, London-based etailer said total sales in the four months to the end of December increased 38 per cent, boosted by UK sales of 37 per cent and European sales of 69 per cent.

CEO Nick Robertson said: 'These results were driven by significant improvements to our customer proposition, including better delivery options, additional payment methods and the roll-out of our premier service in key international markets.'

He added: 'We have enjoyed another strong Christmas and made a good start to the financial year.'

The company is planning to 'significantly increase' the capacity of the Barnsley distribution centre this year and open a central European distribution centre.

US sales, about a quarter the size of UK sales, rose 28 per cent and 'rest of the world' sales increased 19 per cent. Retail gross margins increased 90 basis points.

One analyst said, despite expectations that UK sales would inevitably slow at some point, Asos would benefit overseas by targeting key markets.

'We believe [Asos] will focus on a limited number of markets with a view to making them as significant as the UK rather than taking a scatter gun approach to global expansion with the development of a small dedicated infrastructure in each market,' the analyst said.