Eric Austin Litman (born August 1, 1973) is an American

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

and

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

, and currently serves as CEO of the

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

health technology Health technology is defined by the World Health Organization as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of liv ...

company, Aescape, inc. Litman co-founded Proxicom, built Viaduct from a one-man shop through a merger with the Wolf Group, and was the founder and CEO of Medialets, a mobile

ad serving Ad serving describes the technology and service that places advertisements on Web sites, mobile apps, and Connected TVs. Ad serving technology companies provide software to Web sites and advertisers to serve ads, count them, choose the ads th ...

and advertising analytics company acquired by

WPP plc WPP plc is a British multinational communications, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered in London, England. It was the world's largest advertising company, as of 2019. WPP plc owns many compan ...

. He has been profiled and quoted by ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'', ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'', and ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

'', was named a 2010 Game Changer by New York Enterprise Report, and in 2011 was called one of the "best operators in online advertising" by

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

Early life and education

Litman was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, and grew up on the island of

Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands Saint Thomas ( da, Sankt Thomas) is one of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea which, together with Saint John, Water Island, Hassel Island, and Saint Croix, form a county-equivalent and constituent district of the United States Virgin ...

, where he graduated high school at 15. Litman attended the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

Career

Starting out in business

While in college, he worked in pre-sales support and engineering at

NeXT Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

, the start-up founded by

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

CEO

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...

. Litman then went on to serve as a Senior Systems Engineer for Digicon, building secure, distributed networks and applications for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Proxicom

Litman and three other colleagues from Digicon founded Proxicom in 1991. Proxicom, one of the first-generation Internet professional services agencies, went public on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

in 1998 and was sold to the global consultancy

Dimension Data Dimension Data is a company specialising in information technology services. Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, the company maintains operations on every inhabited continent. Dimension Data focuses on services including IT consulting, technic ...

after a bidding war against

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

(prior to Compaq's merger with

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

Viaduct

After Proxicom, Litman founded Viaduct Technologies, an interactive agency, and served as its CEO. Viaduct was acquired by Wolf Group in 2000. After the acquisition Litman stayed as Viaduct's chief operating officer.

WashingtonVC

Litman was the managing director of WashingtonVC, an early stage

venture capital 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 ha ...

fund in

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

, where he focused on investments in online media, consumer Internet and telecommunications. He conceptualized and launched Aux Interactive in March, 2008. He left WashingtonVC in May, 2008.

Medialets

Litman founded Medialets, a mobile

, attribution and measurement provider in 2008. In April, 2015, Medialets was acquired by

, the world's largest advertising company, where he served as Senior Vice President of Mobile Worldwide until April 2017.

Aescape

In May 2017, Litman founded Aescape, inc., a

company focused on building intuitive massage therapy experiences designed to help people of all walks of life feel and live better, longer, which counts as investors Peter Wurman, the co-founder of Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics),

Fabrice Grinda Fabrice Grinda (born 3 August 1974) is a French entrepreneur, blogger for ''Business Insider'' and super angel, with more than 200 investments around the world, including Alibaba Group, Airbnb, Beepi, FanDuel, Palantir, and Windeln. Grinda is th ...

of FJ Labs, Seth Levine and

Brad Feld Brad Feld (born December 1, 1965) is an American entrepreneur, author, blogger, and venture capitalist at Foundry Group in Boulder, Colorado, a firm he started with partners Seth Levine, Ryan McIntyre, and Jason Mendelson. Feld began financing t ...

of Foundry Group,

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

championship player

Matthew Dellavedova Matthew William Dellavedova (born 8 September 1990) is an Australian professional basketball player for the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for Saint Mary's College. In 2016, he won ...

, Shane Feldberg and others.

References

External links

Eric Litman's Blog

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080505025924/http://www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=4465 Washington VC Names Litman Executive Director
University Venture Summit Starts Students Early on Venture Capital Path

{{DEFAULTSORT:Litman, Eric American technology chief executives American computer businesspeople Computer systems engineers Living people Businesspeople in software 1973 births