Paul Bragiel
| Paul Bragiel | |
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| File:Paul Bragiel - Image by Dan Taylor - dan(at)heisenbergmedia(dot)com.jpg
Paul Bragiel at BDL Accelerate, Beirut, Lebanon, 21 November 2014. Image ©Dan Taylor/Heisenberg Media - http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/
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| Born | 15 September 1977 |
| Residence | U.S. |
| Citizenship | American, Polish, Colombian |
| Fields | Computer Engineer and Business |
Paul Bragiel (born September 15, 1977 in Chicago, Illinois) is an internet entrepreneur and currently a managing partner of i/o Ventures[1]
Early life
Bragiel, the oldest child of Mary and Walter Bragiel, was raised in Mt. Prospect & South Barrington, Illinois. In the late 90s, he was involved in the demoscene.[2]
Ventures
Bragiel graduated from University of Illinois in 1999.[3] Shortly after graduating he founded his first company, Paragon 5, with offices in Chicago and Poland. In 2004 he founded the first location-based social network Meetro. In 2008 he founded Lefora[4] which was sold to Crowdgather in the summer of 2010.[5]
In 2010 he launched i/o Ventures, a seed fund and accelerator based in San Francisco. Mentors include founders of companies such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Zynga, Bittorrent, Paypal, Myspace, WordPress, Yelp & Trulia.
In 2012 he launched three more technology-focused seed funds. Savannah Fund (Sub-Saharan Africa) and Golden Gate Ventures (Southeast Asia) were created to foster entrepreneurship in those regions. Gamefounders (Eastern Europe) invests in companies building gaming-related products.
In 2015 he launched Presence Capital, a $10m venture fund investing in early-stage virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) companies.
Collectively he's invested or advised 100+ companies, which have raised $1.5b+ in follow-on financing. Companies include Uber, Zappos and Unity.
Often he travels around the world to give lectures on startups and serves as an advisor to governments on their technology and entrepreneurship policy including the nations of Colombia, Singapore, Estonia and Tanzania. [6]
Olympics
In 2013 Bragiel trained in cross country skiing in Finland with a view to compete in the 2014 Sochi Olympics under the Colombian flag. In order to participate, Paul obtained Colombian citizenship by presidential decree and was soon globally addressed as the man who was hacking his way into the Olympics.[7]
References
- ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/06/io-ventures-incubator-san-francisco/
- ↑ http://foundersweek.fi/paul-bragiel-is-the-startup-ambassador-of-silicon-valley/
- ↑ Linkedin Public Profile
- ↑ Crunchbase Lefora Company Profile
- ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/24/forum-site-lefora-gobbled-up-by-crowdgather/
- ↑ "Meet Silicon Valley's Unofficial Emissary"
- ↑ i/o Ventures' Paul Bragiel to Train for the Olympics in Lapland: Today We are all #TeamPaul Arctic Startup, 13 Oct. 2013
External links
- Wall Street Journal article about Bragiel's venture fund i/o Ventures.
- TechCrunch interview with Paul Bragiel and Ashwin Navin, founding partners of i/o Ventures
- Forbest article on Savannah Fund
- Pando Daily article on Golden Gate Ventures launch
- Wall Street Journal article about Bragiel's Olympic quest
- Paul's official fan page
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