Jeffrey Fluhr is an American business executive, currently[ when? ] a general partner of Craft. He co-founded StubHub and was its CEO from 2000 until 2007, when it was acquired by eBay. He also established the social video platform Spreecast in 2012, which has since ceased operations. As an angel investor, he has invested in technology companies such as Houzz, Twilio, and Warby Parker.
Fluhr was born into a business-oriented family. His grandfather, Michael Kosof, owned a women's clothing store in Manhattan which he passed on to Fluhr's mother. His father was an engineering executive at AT&T. As a child, Fluhr bought candy in large boxes from a wholesale distributor, and resold it. [1] Fluhr graduated with a dual degree in engineering and finance at the University of Pennsylvania. [2] He won the Joseph Wharton Award for Young Leadership, [3] presented by the Wharton Club of New York. [4] After attending college he worked at the Blackstone Group in New York and then at Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco. [3]
While at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Fluhr entered the annual business plan competition with Eric Baker (later of Viagogo). They devised the idea of a website named "NeedATicket.com", where the public could buy and sell tickets for sporting events and concerts. [3] The idea was so promising that in March 2000 they co-founded StubHub and then Fluhr dropped out of Stanford after his first year. [3] [1] They sought out investors in the music and sports industries and, by August 2000, had raised $600,000 of seed capital for the new company. [5]
In 2003, StubHub started running advertisements on Google. By 2006, StubHub had nearly 200 employees, had sold about $200 million worth of tickets, and had sponsorship agreements with 17 professional and college sports teams. [3] Fluhr sold StubHub in 2007 to eBay for $310 million. [2]
In late 2011, Fluhr launched Spreecast, a social video platform which brings people together for face-face conversation. [6] Spreecast integrated with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter . [7] The company closed its website on 14 July 2016. [8]
Fluhr is a general partner of Craft. [2] As an angel investor he has invested in technology companies since the 1990s, including Houzz, [9] Twilio, [10] and Warby Parker. [11]
Fluhr has been the recipient of several awards including the San Francisco Business Times Forty Under 40 list, Sports Business Journal 's Forty Under 40 list and Entrepreneur Magazine 's 24 Best and Brightest Young Entrepreneurs. [2]
David Oliver Sacks is a South African-American entrepreneur, author, and investor in internet technology firms. He is a general partner of Craft Ventures, a venture capital fund he co-founded in late 2017. Additionally, he is a co-host of the All In podcast, alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg. Previously, Sacks was the COO and product leader of PayPal, and founder and CEO of Yammer. In 2016, he became interim CEO of Zenefits for ten months. In 2017, Sacks co-founded Craft Ventures, an early-stage venture fund. His angel investments include Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, and Airbnb.
StubHub is an American ticket exchange and resale company. It provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater, and other live entertainment events. By 2015, it was the world's largest ticket marketplace. While the company does not currently disclose its financials, in 2015 it had over 16 million unique visitors and nearly 10 million live events per month.
Joshua Kopelman is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist.
Viagogo, stylized by the company as viagogo, is a multinational ticket exchange and ticket resale brand. It is recorded in the United States (Delaware) and has been owned by StubHub since 2021. It was founded in London in 2006 by Eric Baker as an online marketplace for consumers to buy and sell tickets to sports, music, theatre and comedy events.
RotoHog was the consumer facing fantasy sports website for Fastpoint Games, a digital platform developer that designed, implemented and marketed fantasy services for media and advertising partners. The company developed and managed fantasy sports games for media companies, sports brands, and professional sports leagues, which were often co-branded.
InMobi is an Indian multinational technology company, based in Bangalore. Its mobile-first platform allows brands, developers and publishers to engage consumers through contextual mobile advertising. The company was founded in 2007 under the name mKhoj by Naveen Tewari, Mohit Saxena, Amit Gupta and Abhay Singhal.
Twilio Inc. is an American cloud communications company based in San Francisco, California, which provides programmable communication tools for making and receiving phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, and performing other communication functions using its web service APIs.
Houzz is an American website, online community and software for architecture; interior design and decorating; landscape design and home improvement. It was founded in 2009 and is based in Palo Alto, California.
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With over $25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of the world's largest venture capital firms.
Spreecast, Inc. was an Internet application and free social video broadcasting platform.
Warby Parker Inc. is an American retailer of prescription glasses, contact lenses, and sunglasses, based in New York City. Founded in 2010, it was initially an online only retailer. It now sells primarily through more than 200 physical retail store locations across the U.S. and Canada.
SendGrid is a Denver, Colorado-based customer communication platform for transactional and marketing email. The company was founded by Isaac Saldana, Jose Lopez, and Tim Jenkins in 2009, and incubated through the Techstars accelerator program. As of 2017, SendGrid has raised over $81 million and has offices in Denver, Colorado; Boulder, Colorado; Irvine, California; Redwood City, California; and London.
TicketIQ is a no-fee event ticket search engine, aggregator and mobile app which provides ticket-buying options from many different secondary market and primary market ticket sellers, including Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, SeatGeek and Telecharge. The company works directly with teams, leagues, festivals and venues to sell tickets direct-to-fan using paid social and other programmatic media platforms.
ParkWhiz is an e-parking service that allows users to book parking spaces before reaching their destinations. ParkWhiz headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois.
Instabase is a technology company headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides an applied AI platform that can be used to automate business processes.
Eric H. Baker is an American businessman, the founder and CEO of Viagogo, and co-founder of StubHub.
Gametime is a mobile ticket marketplace app developed by San Francisco-based Gametime United Inc., which was founded by Brad Griffith in late 2012. The app was released for iOS in May 2013, with an Android version released in March 2014. In multiple funding rounds following the app's initial release, Gametime has raised a total of US$71.5 million from various investors. The app received an award from each SportsBusiness Daily and the Appy Awards in 2017, and Gametime United was named among the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. in various categories by Deloitte, Inc. and Accel Partners.
Craft Ventures is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco which makes early stage venture investments. Craft was founded in 2017 by David O. Sacks and Bill Lee.
Freestyle Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. General Partners Dave Samuel and Jenny Lefcourt are both entrepreneurs who entered venture capital after founding multiple companies. The firm was founded in 2009 and typically invests in 10-12 companies per year with an average investment between $1.5 million to $3 million. Previous investments include Intercom, Patreon, Narvar, Digit, Betterup, Airtable and Snapdocs.
Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator is an American seed accelerator launched in January 2011.