Fabrice Grinda

Fabrice Grinda (born 3 August 1974) is a French entrepreneur, blogger for Business Insider[1] and super angel, with more than 200 investments around the world,[2] including Alibaba Group, Airbnb, Beepi, FanDuel, Palantir, and Windeln.[3][4][5] Grinda has had $300 million in investment exits.[6] He is the co-founder and former CEO of Aucland, Zingy, and OLX[3][4][7] and is a frequent conference speaker on trends in technology, emerging markets, and investing.[8][9][10][11]

Fabrice Grinda
Born (1974-08-03) 3 August 1974
Boulogne-Billancourt, France
NationalityFrench
EducationPrinceton University
OccupationAngel investor and entrepreneur
Net worth$ 100 Million
Websitefabricegrinda.com

Studies

Grinda was born in Boulogne Billancourt in France and grew up in Nice, where he graduated high school C Massena in 1992.[3] He left France to attend Princeton University and graduated summa cum laude in 1996; he was awarded the Halbert White '72 prize for most distinguished economics student and the Wolf Balleisen memorial prize for best economics thesis.[1][3][12]

Entrepreneurial activities

While at Princeton, Grinda created Princeton International Computers, exporting high-end computer equipment from the U.S. to Europe.[3] He then worked as a consultant for McKinsey from 1996 to 1998 before returning to France where he co-founded the company Aucland.[4]

Aucland

Aucland was one of the three largest auction websites in Europe.[13] In July 1999, in exchange for 51% of the company, Grinda raised $18 million for Aucland from the venture fund of luxury-goods magnate Bernard Arnault.[14] In 2000, he sold the rest of the company to Arnault's fund.[15]

Zingy

In 2000, he returned to the United States where he founded Zingy, a mobile media start-up which he grew to $200 million in revenue.[16] In, 2004, Grinda sold Zingy for $80 million to Japanese media conglomerate For-Side. He remained CEO until 2005.[7][17]

OLX

In 2006, Grinda and Alec Oxenford co-founded OLX with the goal of becoming the largest free classified advertising website in the world.[18] In 2010, the site was acquired by the South African group Naspers,[19] with Grinda remaining CEO until 2013.[20] OLX became the largest classified ad website in India, Pakistan, Brazil, Portugal, Poland and Ukraine.[6] While he was still CEO, OLX was in more than 90 countries, in 50 languages, with over 150 million unique visitors per month.[18]

Serial angel investor

As a serial angel investor, Grinda and his team analyze more than 100 companies a week and make a new investment about every 15 days.[20] As of June 2015, he has made more than 200 start-up investments.[2] His most recent investments are focused on marketplaces connecting buyers to sellers, such as Beepi, a used car marketplace, and Lofty, a marketplace for works of art.[20] His portfolio is about 70% in the United States and 30% in the rest of the world, including Brazil, France, Germany, UK, Russia, China, and Turkey.[6][20][21]

Among Grinda's investments are:[22]

In 2016, Ticketbis sold for $165 million to eBay.[23] Grinda founded FJ Labs, an investment fund, which also employs 30 programmers in the Dominican Republic.[24]

Business blogger and speaker

Grinda's blog, "Musings of an Entrepreneur",[5] is also carried by Business Insider.[1] Grinda has written about raising money from VCs, the future of technology in shaping the world, and working as a serial angel investor.[1] Grinda has been a featured speaker at many conferences, including Le Web,[9] IDCEE,[10] La Red Innova,[11] TechCrunch Italy[25] and SIME.[26]

He hosts a regular 'ask me anything' from different locations, where he talks about private equity and allows users to literally ask him anything, and he responds in detail. He calls this "Playing with Unicorns".[27]

Awards

On 5 December 2014 Grinda received the Golden Pillar, awarded annually from the French Institute Alliance Française for outstanding contributions to Franco-American relations.[28]

Philanthropy

Grinda funds the education of 600 children in the Dominican Republic through the Dream Project.[29]

Personal life

Grinda is not married. A 2015 profile in The New York Times reported that in 2012, in a move he called "the very big downgrade", intended to allow him more time to spend with friends and family, Grinda sold his 20-acre New York estate, his Manhattan apartment and his car, and donated his other possessions to charity, except for a carry-on suitcase with 50 items. For the next three years, he lived without a permanent residence or other possessions, at first staying with friends and family, and eventually, after friends complained, in hotels and Airbnb rentals.[2] In 2015, he re-established a permanent residence in New York City but continued to keep his personal possession under 50 items.[30]

References
  1. "Fabrice Grinda". Business Insider. Business Insider. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  2. Holson, Laura (13 June 2015). "A Curious Midlife Crisis for a Tech Entrepreneur". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  3. Jeffries, Adrianne (12 April 2012). "The Clone Collector: Meet New York Superangel Fabrice Grinda, Master of Digital Knockoffs". New York Observer. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  4. Becker, Sam (6 December 2013). "An Angel in New York". Alley Watch. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  5. "Musings of an Entrepreneur". FabriceGrinda.com.
  6. "Fabrice Grinda". Crunchbase. Techcrunch. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  7. Wellons, Mary Catherine (14 June 2012). "5 Minutes With a Visionary: Fabrice Grinda". CNBC. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  8. "Fabrice Grinda". YouTube. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  9. "Fabrice Grinda – LeWeb'13 Paris – The Next 10 Years". YouTube.com. Le Web. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  10. "IDCEE 2014: Opening Keynote by Fabrice Grinda (OLX, Angel Investor)". YouTube.com. IDCEE. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  11. "Fabrice Grinda's Keynote at La Red Innova 2011: Angel Investing Secrets". YouTube.com. La Red Innova. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  12. Johnson, Emily (3 May 2000). "Parlez-Vous eBay?". Daily Princetonian. Archived from the original on 2015-02-20. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
  13. Pitts, Beth (7 June 2013). "Fabrice Grinda, Investor/Entrepreneur: Finding a VC is Like Getting Married". The Next Woman. Archived from the original on 20 February 2015. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
  14. Galant, Greg (16 April 2008). "Fabrice Grinda's First Time (Raising Money)". Venture Voice. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
  15. Matlack, Carol (30 July 2000). "Bernard Arnault's Shaky E Empire". Bloomberg Business. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
  16. "Fabrice Grinda". TechCrunch. TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2015-03-10. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
  17. Kafka, Peter (1 December 2005). "Zingy Founder Steps Down". Forbes. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
  18. "Fabrice Grinda". Sime.nu. Sime. Archived from the original on 2014-12-26. Retrieved 2015-02-21.
  19. "OLX". Naspers.com. Naspers. Archived from the original on 17 November 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
  20. Fredouelle, Aude (11 July 2014). "Pourquoi je n'ai pas investi dans Uber". JDN. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
  21. "2014 Investment Year in Review". fabricegrinda.com.
  22. "Portfolio". FabriceGrinda.com. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  23. Lunden, Ingrid (24 May 2016). "eBay buys Spain's Ticketbis for $165M to expand StubHub into Europe, Latin America, Asia". TechCrunch. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  24. "Investment fund at Cabarete paves way for technology tourism". DominicanToday. 29 April 2016. Archived from the original on 4 May 2016. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  25. "Fabrice Grinda at TechCrunch Italy 2013". YouTube.com. TechCrunch Italy. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
  26. "2013 11 12 SIME Day1 11 Fabrice Grinda". YouTube.com. SIME. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
  27. Grinda, Fabrice. "Playing with Unicorns". Fabrice Grinda. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
  28. Leon, Masha (11 December 2014). "French Acclaim for Entrepreneurs". The Jewsih Daily Forward. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
  29. Rodriguez, Maria Gabriella (December 2015). "Lo Boca. La Silicon Valley Dominicana". Revista Mercado.
  30. Surana, Kavitha (2 May 2016). "Meet Fabrice Grinda, the Minimalist in the $6 Million LES Penthouse". Bed and Bowery. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
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