Pi Capital, the members-only venture capitalist club, has appointed Paul Thomas as chief investment officer and managing director.

Thomas was until recently joint managing director of ECI, one of the UK's most established mid-market buy-out firms. According to consultants, its €280m ($318m) most recent fund has multplied the value of its investments by a factor of 2.6, generating an upper quartile annualised return of 39%. Thomas was at ECI for 19 years.