Jason McCabe Calacanis (born November 28, 1970) is an American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, author and blogger. His first company was part of the dot-com era in New York, and his second venture, Weblogs, Inc., a publishing company that he co-founded together with Brian Alvey, capitalized on the growth of blogs before being sold to AOL. As well as being an angel investor in various technology startups, Calacanis also presents at industry conferences worldwide.
Video Jason Calacanis
Early life
Calacanis was born in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, New York and has two brothers. He graduated from Xaverian High School in 1988. He then attended Fordham University, where he received a B.A. in psychology.
Maps Jason Calacanis
Career
Calacanis's biggest success to date is Weblogs, Inc., which was sold to AOL in 2005. Before forming Weblogs, Inc., Calacanis was founder and CEO of Rising Tide Studios, a media company that published print and online publications. During the dot-com boom, Calacanis was active in New York's Silicon Alley community, and in 1996 began producing the Silicon Alley Reporter. Originally a 16-page photocopied newsletter, it eventually expanded into a 300-page magazine, with a sister publication called the Digital Coast Reporter for the West Coast. Calacanis's socializing earned him a nickname as the "yearbook editor" of the Silicon Alley community. The company also organized conferences in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco focused on the Internet, web, and New Media. With the end of the Dot-com bubble, Silicon Alley Reporter failed, and the company was sold out of bankruptcy to a private equity firm.
Weblogs/Netscape
As a blogger, Calacanis co-founded Weblogs, Inc. with Brian Alvey in September 24, 2003, supported by an angel investment from Mark Cuban. Two years after inception, the Weblogs, Inc. blogs business was generating $1,000 a day just from AdSense. Time Warner's America Online agreed to buy Weblogs, Inc. in October 2005 for $25-30 million.
On November 16, 2006, TechCrunch reported that Calacanis had resigned from his position as CEO of Weblogs, Inc. and General Manager of Netscape. Calacanis later confirmed this with a post on his blog.
Sequoia Capital
Calacanis joined Sequoia Capital as an EIA (entrepreneur in action) in December, 2006, a position which he held until May, 2007.
Mahalo.com
Mahalo ("thank you" in Hawaiian), raised $20 million in venture capital from investors including Sequoia Capital, News Corp, CBS, Mark Cuban, and Elon Musk. The company's motto: "We're here to help." At its peak, it had 14.1 million global (7.4 million US) unique monthly visitors. Mahalo shut down in 2014.
Angel investing
In 2009, Calacanis founded the Open Angel Forum, an event that connects early stage startups with angel investors. The forum was the culmination of a series of public comments by Calacanis questioning the ethics of pay-to-pitch angel forums. Calacanis believes startups shouldn't have to pay to pitch angel investors.
Calacanis raised a $10 million fund for his own venture investment firm to invest in startups that emerged from the Launch conference. Limited partners in the fund include David Sacks. Following the success of the Launch conference, Mr. Calacanis aims to get closer and more involved in the new ventures that emerged from that conference. The approach of investment is around $25,000 to $100,000 in five to 10 startups per year.
ThisWeekIn
Calacanis founded ThisWeekIn.com, which in 2012, shut down.
ThisWeekInStartups.com (also called TWiSt) is a show hosted by Calacanis.
LAUNCH Conference
Calacanis announced the creation of the Launch Festival to spotlight unannounced start-ups.
Bibliography
- Jason Calacanis, Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups, Harper Business, 2017 ISBN 9780062560704
References
- General
External links
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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