Paul Chen | |
---|---|
Nationality | Canadian |
Alma mater | University of Toronto |
Occupation | entrepreneur |
Known for | founder of FloNetwork and Fortiva |
Paul Chen is a Canadian entrepreneur based in Toronto, founder of two technology companies, FloNetwork and Fortiva. [1] [2]
Chen has a Bachelor of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto. In his early career, he held senior development positions with IBM, Honeywell and Bell-Northern Research. He founded FloNetwork. in 1993, serving as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer. After raising over $30M from high-profile venture capital firms such as McLean Watson Capital, Ventures West and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Chen was instrumental in selling the business in 2001 to DoubleClick (now owned by Google) for $80M. [3] [4] Following his exit from FloNetwork, Chen served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at McLean Watson Capital. He launched the email archiving service Fortiva in 2005. As CEO, Chen helped to establish The Electronic Communications Compliance Council (TE3C). [5] Fortiva grew as a leader in the "Software as a service" email archiving space before being acquired in 2008 by Proofpoint. [6] [7] [8]
Lycos, Inc., is a web search engine and web portal established in 1994, spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. Lycos also encompasses a network of email, web hosting, social networking, and entertainment websites. The company is based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and is a subsidiary of Ybrant Digital.
Shawn Fanning is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and angel investor. He developed Napster, one of the first popular peer-to-peer ("P2P") file sharing platforms, in 1999. The popularity of Napster was widespread and Fanning was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
Carnivore, later renamed DCS1000, was a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that was designed to monitor email and electronic communications. It used a customizable packet sniffer that could monitor all of a target user's Internet traffic. Carnivore was implemented in October 1997. By 2005 it had been replaced with improved commercial software.
GameFly is a privately held American online video game rental subscription service that specializes in providing games for Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft systems starting from the sixth generation onwards.
The RAD Group consists of a number of independent companies that develop, manufacture and market solutions for diverse segments of the networking and telecommunications industry. Each company operates independently, without a holding company, but is guided by the group founders under a collective strategic umbrella. Companies share technology, engage in joint marketing activities and benefit from a common management structure.
Kevin O'Connor is an American entrepreneur and co-founder of Graphiq, a research engine founded in Santa Barbara in 2009. Previously, O'Connor was a co-founder of DoubleClick, an internet advertisement-technology, and founder of O'Connor Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early stage companies, including COR, 9Star, Surfline, Travidia, Procore and CampusExplorer.
Karen Richardson is an American executive in the software industry.
Brightmail Inc. was a San Francisco–based technology company focused on anti-spam filtering. Brightmail's system has a three-pronged approach to stopping spam, the Probe Network is a massive number of e-mail addresses established for the sole purpose of receiving spam. The Brightmail Logistics and Operations Center (BLOC) evaluates newly detected spam and issues rules for ISPs. The third approach is the Spam Wall, a filtering engine that identifies and screens out spam based on the updates from the BLOC.
Proofpoint, Inc. is an American enterprise cybersecurity company based in Sunnyvale, California that provides software as a service and products for email security, identity threat defense, data loss prevention, electronic discovery, and email archiving.
Trillium Digital Systems, Inc. developed and licensed standards-based communications source code software to telecommunications equipment manufacturers for the wireless, broadband, Internet and telephone network infrastructure. Trillium was an early company to license source code. The Trillium Digital Systems business entity no longer exists, but the Trillium communications software is still developed and licensed. Trillium software is used in the network infrastructure as well as associated service platforms, clients and devices.
Aardvark was a social search service that connected users live with friends or friends-of-friends who were able to answer their questions, also known as a knowledge market. Users submitted questions via the Aardvark website, email or instant messenger and Aardvark identified and facilitated a live chat or email conversation with one or more topic experts in the 'askers' extended social network. Aardvark was used for asking subjective questions for which human judgment or recommendation was desired. It was also used extensively for technical support questions. Users could also review question and answer history and other settings on the Aardvark website. Google acquired Aardvark for $50 million on February 11, 2010. In September 2011, Google announced it would discontinue a number of its products, including Aardvark.
Jatheon Technologies, Inc. is a privately-held company founded in 2004 providing various products for the archiving of email, social media and other unstructured data with a focus on highly regulated industries such as education, healthcare, government, financial and legal sectors. The company is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Fortiva was a software as a service (SaaS) based email archiving company. Founded in 2005 by Paul Chen, the former CEO and founder of FloNetwork. Fortiva's SaaS email archiving service introduced a "hybrid" method, taking advantage of storage and services "in the cloud" while leaving control over email services at the customer site. As a result, the company claimed to offer businesses the benefits of an in-house product with the advantages of a managed solution.
FloNetwork was an eMarketing Application Service Provider (ASP) that specialized in permission- based Internet direct marketing and communications services. The company, which was privately held until its acquisition by Doubleclick, operated as an ASP and enabled clients to send mass email campaigns. Flonetwork was an early leader in the permission-based online direct marketing and communications market.
Amol Sarva is an American entrepreneur who founded Knotel, Halo Neuroscience, Knote, Peek, and Virgin Mobile USA.
Bigfoot International, Inc. was a New York City based holding company, which developed email communications, marketing automation and customer interaction software products during the dot-com era. Founded in 1997 by Lenny Barshack and James Hoffman, it grew out of Bigfoot.com, a free e-mail provider and Web directory. It eventually developed into a group of three subsidiaries: Bigfoot.com, Bigfoot Interactive, and Neoplanet, Inc. The company ended in 2000.
Sendmail, Inc. is an email management business.
Greenspring Associates was a venture capital firm that invested primarily in the information technology, biotechnology, healthcare and telecommunications sectors. The firm was based in Owings Mills, Maryland and maintained offices in Palo Alto, CA, Miami, FL, London, and Beijing. The company was led by two Managing General Partners, C. Ashton Newhall and James "Jim" Lim, along with General Partners Hunter Somerville, John Avirett, and Lindsay Redfield, as well as Chief Operating Officer Eric Thompson, Chief Financial Officer Carrie McIntyre, and Partners Seyonne Kang and Adair Newhall. In 2021, the Firm agreed to be acquired by StepStone Group in a transaction valued north of $725 million, bringing the combined firm's assets under management to a figure around $27 billion.
Javier Soltero is a Puerto Rican entrepreneur and executive. Previously, he was the Corporate Vice President advisor to Rajesh Jha at Microsoft. Prior to Microsoft, he was co-founder and CEO of Acompli, after being an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Redpoint Ventures. Most recently, he was General Manager and Vice President of Google Workspace at Google until July 2022.