Laurel Touby (born March 13, 1963) is an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

. She is currently the Managing Director o
Supernode Ventures
a venture capital firm in New York City. Touby is best known as the founder of

Mediabistro Mecklermedia (formerly Internet.com LLC, Jupitermedia Inc., Mediabistro Inc. and WebMediaBrands Corporation) was a U.S.-based corporation. The original WebMediaBrands was established in 1994, and headquartered in New York. Founded by Alan M. ...

, the journalism and publishing resource site that she sold to

Jupitermedia Mecklermedia (formerly Internet.com LLC, Jupitermedia Inc., Mediabistro Inc. and WebMediaBrands Corporation) was a U.S.-based corporation. The original WebMediaBrands was established in 1994, and headquartered in New York. Founded by Alan M. ...

in 2007 for $23 million. Following the sale of Mediabistro, Laurel began a second career as a New York City based start-up advisor and tech investor. She has also been a mentor for the tech

incubator An incubator is anything that performs or facilitates various forms of incubation, and may refer to: Biology and medicine * Incubator (culture), a device used to grow and maintain microbiological cultures or cell cultures * Incubator (egg), a de ...

Techstars. In January 2015, she set up her own investor syndicate
Flatiron Investors
representing New York based private investors.

Education

Laurel attended Pine Crest High School ( Fort Lauderdale, Florida) from 1979-1981. She then went on to pursue her education at Smith College where she majored in economics and international relations. She graduated with her BA in the summer of 1985. While studying at Smith College, Laurel was a track and field collegiate athlete and actively involved in student government. During her time at Smith, Laurel developed a passion and talent for writing. Following graduation in 1985, Laurel moved to New York City to pursue her interest in writing.

Career

Laurel started as a junior planner at

Young & Rubicam VMLY&R is an American marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting, formed from the merger of VML, founded in 1992, and Young & Rubica ...

advertising in June 1985. Over the course of the next three years she worked herself into the position of Senior Media Player. During her time with Young & Rubicam she worked on the AT&T calling card account as well as the Breyers ice cream account. Laurels’ next career step was when she took a position as Staff Editor for BusinessWeek magazine in September 1990. While staffed there she wrote for the corporate strategy section of the magazine. Laurel was hired as the contributing editor at

Glamour magazine ''Glamour'' is today an online women's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. For many years a traditional hard-copy magazine, it was founded in 1939 and first published in April 1939 in the United States. It was originally called '' ...

in 1995. During that time she wrote and edited a column named “Getting Ahead Guide” to jobs and money. While still working at Glamour magazine Laurel also became the CEO of Mediabistro.com, a website for people in the media industry providing services such as online education, employment classifieds, conferences, events, forums, and industry-specific blogs, such as the popular

TVNewser ''Adweek'' is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1979. ''Adweek'' covers creativity, client–agency relationships, global advertising, accounts in review, and new campaigns. During this time, it has cover ...

. Following the sale of the company for $23 mm to

in 2007, Laurel remained with the company through June, 2011.

Investing

In 2012, Laurel began investing in seed-stage startups, including Appboy (now Braze.com), Credijusto, Electric.ai, Fashion GPS (now LaunchMetrics.com), and others. She is an investor in

Lowercase Capital Lowercase Capital is an American venture capital firm that provided seed and early stage funding for a number of successful startups including Twitter, Twilio, Kickstarter, Uber, Instagram, and Stripe. It raised over $1 billion in capital and ...

and Pershing Square, among other funds. Laurel is active as a public speaker and hosted “Secrets of Successful Startups“ on

CBS Interactive Paramount Streaming (formerly CBS Digital Media Group, CBS Interactive, ViacomCBS Streaming), a division of Paramount Global, oversees the company’s streaming technology and offers direct-to-consumer services, free, premium and pay. These incl ...

. In 2007 she earned the entrepreneur of the Year Award from Smith College, as well as an award from the

Manhattan Chamber of Commerce Manhattan Chamber of Commerce is a nonprofit organization that represents and supports local businesses across the borough of Manhattan in New York City. History The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce was established in July 1920 as the Yorkville Cha ...

Personal life

Touby is married to Jon Fine, former media reporter for

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

and former Executive Director of Editorial at Inc. Magazine. They live in a 4,000 sq ft loft near Union Square in New York City.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Touby, Laurel Living people American columnists American magazine editors American venture capitalists Women magazine editors American women columnists 1963 births 21st-century American women Pine Crest School alumni