Sean Parker is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, most notable for co-founding the file-sharing computer service Napster, and serving as the first president of the social networking website Facebook. He also co-founded Plaxo, Causes, Airtime.com, and Brigade, an online platform for civic engagement. He is the founder and chairman of the Parker Foundation, which focuses on life sciences, global public health, and civic engagement. On the Forbes 2022 list of the world's billionaires, he was ranked No. 1,096 with a net worth of US$2.8 billion.
Jason McCabe Calacanis is an American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, author and podcaster.
Founders Fund is a San Francisco based venture capital firm formed in 2005 and has roughly $11 billion in total assets under management as of 2022. Founders Fund was the first institutional investor in Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Palantir Technologies, and early investor in Facebook. The firm’s partners, including Peter Thiel, Ken Howery and Brian Singerman, have been founders, early employees and investors at companies including PayPal, Google, Palantir Technologies, and SpaceX.
Lightspeed Venture Partners is an American venture capital firm focusing on multi-stage investments in the enterprise, consumer, and health sectors. Lightspeed invests in seed, early and growth-stage companies.
Graphicly was a platform for publishers which offered work flow integration, self-publishing, digital distribution, conversion, and promotion for digital content. Launched by Kevin Mann and Micah Baldwin, the website was initially a platform for digital comic books, but later added support for children's books, art books, and magazines. Graphicly accumulated more than 3,500 publishers and more than 10,000 independent creators. The website hosted an active social community, allowing creators and fans to interact directly. Graphicly shut down in May 2014, and some of its key staff moved on to fellow digital publisher Blurb.
Andreessen Horowitz is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of April 2023, Andreessen Horowitz ranks first on the list of venture capital firms by assets under management.
Christopher P. Lynch is an American Venture Capitalist and entrepreneur. He invested in sqrrl, DataRobot, Threat Stack, Nutonian and Hadapt. He co-founded hack/reduce, a Boston-based Big Data incubator in May 2012. Lynch was a founding member of ArrowPoint communications and Acopia Networks where he served as CEO. Additionally, he was CEO at Vertica Systems.
Udemy, Inc. is an education technology company that provides an online learning and teaching platform. It was founded in May 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar.
Eventbrite is an American event management and ticketing website. The service allows users to browse, create, and promote local events. The service charges a fee to event organizers in exchange for online ticketing services, unless the event is free.
Cvent Holding Corp. is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company based in Tysons Corner, Virginia, that specializes in meetings, events, and hospitality management technology by offering web-based software for in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, including online event registration, venue selection, event marketing and management, virtual and onsite, and attendee engagement. Cvent also offers software for hotels and venues to manage group and corporate travel business, and attract group business through its sourcing platforms. Previously public, Cvent was taken private by investment firm Blackstone Inc. for $4.6 billion in June 2023.
Votizen is a consumer technology company that is developing an online network of voters in the United States. Based in Mountain View, California, the site allows its members, which it calls "Votizens", to learn about issues and elections, and take collective action with other committed voters through social media. Votizen verifies that each voice belongs to a real voter in the real world. As of 2012, Votizen had mapped out over a million connections between voters on Votizen. It was acquired by activism platform Causes in 2013.
CircleUp is a financial technology company based in San Francisco that focuses on consumer goods startups. Since its official launch in April 2012, CircleUp has helped several consumer companies raise equity, including Back to the Roots, Halo Top Creamery, Little Duck Organics, Rhythm Superfoods and others. General Mills has an investment fund that is partnered with CircleUp to invest in companies listed on the platform.
Growth hacking is a subfield of marketing focused on the rapid growth of a company. It is referred to as both a process and a set of cross-disciplinary (digital) skills. The goal is to regularly conduct experiments, which can include A/B testing, that will lead to improving the customer journey, and replicate and scale the ideas that work and modify or abandon the ones that do not, before investing a lot of resources. It started in relation to early-stage startups that need rapid growth within a short time on tight budgets, and also reached bigger corporate companies.
Optimove is a privately held company that develops and markets a Relationship Marketing software as a service (SaaS). Optimove's product has a Customer Data Platform at its core and applies algorithmic optimization to autonomously improve multichannel campaigns. The company serves various industries, including retail, eCommerce, travel and hospitality, gaming, and financial services.
Gagan Biyani is an American of Indian descent serial entrepreneur, marketer, and journalist. He was a co-founder of Udemy, an online education company, and was co-founder and CEO of Sprig, a food delivery company.
SeedInvest is an equity crowdfunding platform that connects startups with investors online. The company was founded in 2012 and launched in 2013. SeedInvest has focused on building liquidity in the platform by attracting high-net-worth individuals, family offices and venture capital firms. SeedInvest screens and vets deals before allowing them to take advantage of the JOBS Act exemption permitting General Solicitation. In September 2014 the company launched a partnership with Angel Investing website Gust. In October 2018, SeedInvest was acquired by peer-to-peer payment company Circle Internet Financial Ltd.
Scott Fox is an American financial and self-help author, specializing in entrepreneurship and startup company advice. He is a serial Internet entrepreneur, startup advisor, media personality, and angel investor. Founder of the OC Startup Council, the Click Millionaire's MasterMinds Forum at ClickMillionaires.com, and RadioGuestList.com among many other niche website businesses, Fox is best known for his books which have been translated into many languages worldwide. These include Internet Riches: The Simple Money-making Secrets of Online Millionaires, E-Riches 2.0, and Click Millionaires: Work Less, Live More with an Internet Business You Love.
Shervin Kordary Pishevar is an Iranian-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, super angel investor, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and former executive chairman of Hyperloop One and a co-founder and managing director of Sherpa Capital, a venture capital fund which has invested in companies including Airbnb, Uber, GoPuff, Cue Health, Slack, Robinhood, Munchery and Postmates.
Everette Taylor is an American business executive. He has been the CEO of Kickstarter since September 2022, and was CMO of Artsy, and founder of ET Enterprises which includes the marketing firm MiliSense, social media software company PopSocial, ArtX and GrowthHackers.
Arjun Sethi is an American internet entrepreneur, investor and executive. He is co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Tribe Capital. He previously was partner at Social Capital and served as an executive at Yahoo! where he launched Yahoo! Livetext. Before that, he was co-founder and CEO of MessageMe and he was CEO of Lolapps, the developer behind Ravenwood Fair.
