Brad Feld (born December 1, 1965) is an American entrepreneur, author, blogger, and

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...

at Foundry Group in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

, a firm he started with partners Seth Levine, Ryan McIntyre, and Jason Mendelson. Feld began financing technology

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses t ...

in the early 1990s, first as an

angel In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include ...

and later an institutional investor. Feld was an early investor in

Harmonix Harmonix Music Systems, Inc., doing business as Harmonix, is an American video game developer company based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was established in May 1995 by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy. Harmonix is perhaps best known as bei ...

Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its missio ...

MakerBot MakerBot Industries, LLC is an American desktop 3D printer manufacturer company headquartered in New York City. It was founded in January 2009 by Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, and Zach "Hoeken" Smith to build on the early progress of the RepRap Proje ...

, and

Fitbit Fitbit (stylized as fitbit) is an American consumer electronics and fitness company. It produces wireless-enabled wearable technology, physical fitness monitors and activity trackers such as smartwatches, pedometers and monitors for heart rate ...

."This Week in Venture Capital – Brad Feld, Managing Director at Foundry Group – YouTube"
''YouTube'', Retrieved on December 1, 2013

Career

In 1987, Feld co-founded Feld Technologies, a custom software development startup which catered mostly to small and medium sized businesses,"Brad Feld: Great Entrepreneurs Go Out and Do"
Feld, Brad. '' tanford eCorner' Stanford University, October 20, 2011. Retrieved on March 5, 2018. while he was a student at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

."Brad Feld: Building A Company Is Like Running A Marathon"
''

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

'', Retrieved on December 1, 2013 In 1993, the company was acquired by AmeriData for around $2 million, where Feld took the role of chief technology officer. Prior to the acquisition, Feld Technologies had grown to a headcount of 20 employees and was doing just under $2 million in annual revenue. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Feld helped operate Interliant, an

application service An application layer is an abstraction layer that specifies the shared communications protocols and interface methods used by hosts in a communications network. An ''application layer'' abstraction is specified in both the Internet Protocol Su ...

and hosting provider. Interliant failed in 2002, following the collapse of the dot-com bubble. Feld openly talks about his experience at Interliant, using it as an example of entrepreneurial failure. In 2006, Feld helped David Cohen co-found Techstars, an early-stage venture fund and startup accelerator. Before co-founding Foundry Group in 2007, Feld co-founded VC firms Intensity Ventures and Mobius Venture Capital. After its inaugural $225 million fund, Foundry Group has raised four more early-stage funds of $225 million each – in 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2016. Foundry Group also raised a $225 million Select Fund in 2013 that invests in later stage opportunities of their earlier stage funds. In 2016, they raised Foundry Next which is a $500 million fund investing in later stage opportunities as well as investing in other venture firms. Feld serves on the boards of nonprofits National Center for Women & Information Technology, Startup Colorado, Global EIR Program, and UP Global. As of 2022, Feld was the primary funder of the Banana Lounge at MIT which gives away hundreds of thousands of bananas to the MIT community.

Writing

Since 2005 Feld has been writing on Feld Thoughts, a technology venture blog. Feld is the author and co-author of a series of books focused on entrepreneurship, technology venture capital, and startups in general. He is also a member of the Xconomists, an ad hoc team of editorial advisors for the tech news and media company

Xconomy Xconomy is a Boston, Massachusetts–based media company providing news on business, life sciences, and technology{{cite web , title=Company Overview of Xconomy, Inc. , url=https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=3 ...

Personal life

Feld was born in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

and grew up in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

, Texas. In 1983, he moved to

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

to attend MIT where he earned a bachelor's and master's degree in Management Science. Since 1995, he has lived in

with wife and co-author Amy Batchelor.

Bibliography

* ''Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup'' with David Cohen (2010) * ''Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist'' with Jason Mendelson (2011) * ''Burning Entrepreneur: How to Launch, Fund, and Set Your Startup On Fire'' (2012) * ''Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City'' (2012) * ''Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist (Second Edition)'' with Jason Mendelson (2012) * ''Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur'' with Amy Batchelor (2013) * ''Startup Boards: Getting the Most Out of Your board of directors'' with Mahendra Ramsinghani (2013) * ''Startup Metrics: Making Sense of the Numbers in Your Startup'' with Seth Levine (2014) * ''Startup Opportunities: Know When to Quit Your Day Job'' with Sean Wise (2015) * ''Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist (Third Edition)'' with Jason Mendelson (2016) * ''#GiveFirst: A New Philosophy for Business in The Era of Entrepreneurship'' (2018) * ''The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem'' with Ian Hathaway (2020) * ''The Entrepreneur's Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors'' with Dave Jilk (2021)

References

External links

Personal weblog

Brad Feld's Twitter Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feld, Brad American venture capitalists Angel investors MIT Sloan School of Management alumni Living people 1965 births American chief technology officers