Freestyle Capital

Freestyle Capital is a venture capital firm focused on early stage investments in technology, financial technology, media, telecommunications, internet software and consumer and web-based technology companies. The firm was founded in 2009 by Josh Felser and Dave Samuel and is based in San Francisco, California.[1][2]

Freestyle Capital
TypePrivate
IndustryVenture Capital
Founded2009
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
,
U.S.
Key people
Josh Felser, Co-Founder and Partner
Dave Samuel, Co-Founder and Partner
Jenny Lefcourt, Partner
Websitefreestyle.vc

History

Prior to Freestyle, Felser and Samuel founded and sold two companies together.[3] In 1996, they launched internet radio service Spinner, which they sold to AOL in 1999 for $320 million.[4][5] In 2004, they founded video sharing network Grouper (later renamed Crackle), which they sold to Sony Corp. in 2006 for $65 million.[2]

Felser and Samuel started Freestyle in 2009, making angel investments with their own money. Some of those investments include CoTweet, Get Satisfaction and CrowdFlower.[6] In 2011, Freestyle announced a formal fund of $27 million. In 2012, SalesForce bought portfolio company GoInstant for more than $70 million.[2]

Freestyle raised its second fund of $40 million in 2013 and their third fund of $60 million in 2015.[3]

Jenny Lefcourt joined Freestyle toward the end of Fund II and became an equal partner at the close of Fund III.[3] Prior to Freestyle, Lefcourt founded WeddingChannel.com, which was acquired by The Knot, and Bella Pictures, which was acquired by CPI Corp (now defunct).[7] Notable investments from the first three funds include Intercom, Patreon, Narvar, Digit, Wag, Betterup and Airtable.[3]

In 2017, Freestyle raised $90 million for its fourth fund.[3]

Notable Investments
  • about.me – personal web hosting service, acquired by AOL in 2010.[8]
  • Alphadraft – daily fantasy sports provider, acquired by FanDuel in 2015.[9]
  • backtype – SaaS social media analytics service, acquired by Twitter in 2011.[10]
  • Buildingconnected - construction bid-management platform, acquired in 2018 by Autodesk.[11]
  • Byliner - short-form ebook publisher, acquired in 2014 by Vook (now Pronoun).[12]
  • Cardpool – pre-owned gift card retailer, purchased in 2011 by Blackhawk Networks.[13]
  • Clarity – mentorship service, acquired in 2015 by Fundable.[14]
  • figure eight – data annotation company, acquired by Appen in 2019 for $300 million.[15]
  • Goinstant – co-browsing software, sold to Salesforce.com in 2012 for $70 million.[16]
  • gradescope – AI-assisted grading service, acquired by TurnItIn in October 2018.[17]
  • HeartThis – local services marketplace, acquired in 2015 by thumbtack.[18]
  • Impermium – cybersecurity provider, acquired in 2019 by Google.[19]
  • indextank – real-time-hosted search, acquired in 2011 by LinkedIn.[20]
  • Joyride – podcast player, acquired by Google.
  • Launchkit – toolkit for mobile app development, acquired in 2016 by Google.[21]
  • leo – messaging app, acquired in 2015 by Lyft.[22]
  • Opsmatic – DevOps monitoring tool, acquired in 2015 by New Relic.[23]
  • payable – payment platform, acquired in 2107 by Stripe.[24]
  • Rangeme – platform for consumer packaged goods, acquired in 2017 by Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing (ECRM).[25]
  • Rixty – payment platform, acquired in 2012 by MOL global.[26]
  • Simplegeo – API for location-aware applications, acquired in 2011 by Urban Airship.
  • singly – API management, acquired in 2013 by Appcelerator.[27]
  • Snappytv – video clip platform, acquired in 2014 by Twitter.[28]
  • stitch – sales tracking platform, acquired in 2015 by SugarCRM.[29]
  • Tenor (formerly riffsy) – GIF keyboard and search engine, acquired in 2018 by Google.[30]
  • Typekit – cloud-based font site, acquired in 2011 by Adobe[31]
  • yobongo – social discovery app, acquired in 2012 acquired by Mixbook.[32]

References
  1. "Company Overview of Freestyle Capital," Bloomberg News, retrieved July 2, 2019.
  2. Yuliya Chernova, "Seed Investor Freestyle Capital Churning Out Exits," The Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2014.
  3. Ryan Lawler, "Freestyle Capital raised a new $90 million fund and promoted Jenny Lefcourt to general partner," TechCrunch, April 10, 2017.
  4. "HI-TECH'S NEW DAY". Newsweek. 10 April 2005. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  5. "America Online Acquires Leading Internet Music Brands -- Spinner.Com, Winamp and SHOUTcast". WarnerMedia. 1 June 1999. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  6. Leena Rao, "Sweat Equity: From Co-Founders To Co-Investors, Freestyle.VC Invests More Than Just Cash," TechCrunch, July 13, 2013.
  7. Rao, Leena (30 May 2014). "WeddingChannel Co-Founder Jenny Lefcourt Joins Freestyle". TechCrunch. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  8. frommer, Dan (20 December 2010). "About.Me CEO Tony Conrad: Here's Why I Sold My Company To AOL So Quickly". Business Insider. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  9. Grubb, Jeff (24 September 2015). "FanDuel acquires AlphaDraft to get into esports". VentureBeat. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  10. Dugan, Lauren (5 July 2011). "Twitter Acquires Social Media Analytics Company BackType". Adweek. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  11. Miller, Ron (20 December 2018). "Autodesk adds to construction software biz with acquisition of BuildingConnected for $275M BLANK". TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  12. "Vook Acquires Byliner". Publishers Weekly. 11 September 2014. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  13. Rao, Leena (21 October 2011). "Blackhawk Network Buys Gift Card Marketplace Cardpool". TechCrunch. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  14. Ha, Anthony (3 February 2019). "Fundable Acquires Mentorship Service Clarity.fm As Part Of Its New Launch Platform, Startups.co". TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  15. Ha, Anthony (10 March 2019). "Appen acquires Figure Eight for up to $300M, bringing two data annotation companies together". TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  16. Spencer E. Ante, "Salesforce.com to Buy GoInstant," The Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2012.
  17. "Turnitin Acquires AI-Assisted Grading Startup, Gradescope". EdSurge. 3 October 2018. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  18. Lunden, Ingrid (3 September 2019). "Local Services Marketplace Thumbtack Makes Its First Acquisition, The Acqui-Hire Of HeartThis". TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  19. Kim-Mai Cutler, "Spam-Fighting Startup Impermium Joins Google, Discontinues Third-Party Services," TechCrunch, January 15, 2019.
  20. Rao, Leena (11 October 2011). "LinkedIn Buys Real-Time, Hosted Search Startup IndexTank". TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  21. yeung, ken (27 July 2016). "Google acquires LaunchKit, will discontinue hosted mobile development services". VentureBeat. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  22. Buhr, Sarah (26 June 2015). "Lyft Acqui-Hires The Team From Messaging App Leo To Improve Location And Other Features". TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  23. Novet, Jordan (5 November 2015). "New Relic buys devops monitoring tool Opsmatic". VentureBeat. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  24. Lawler, Ryan (26 July 2017). "Stripe acquires Payable to help on-demand businesses manage 1099 tax reporting". TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  25. Mitchell, Sue (7 June 2017). "Windfall for investors as RangeMe sold to US marketing company". Financial Review. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  26. Lunden, Ingrid (22 October 2012). "Friendster Owner MOL Takes Majority Investment In Rixty, The Cash-Based Payment Platform For Games". TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  27. Hardawar, Devindra (22 August 2013). "Why did Appcelerator buy Singly? Because it wants to be the next Oracle". VentureBeat. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  28. Spangler, Todd (19 June 2014). "Twitter Acquires SnappyTV to Bring More TV Content to Social Network". Variety. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  29. Lunden, Ingrid (8 March 2015). "Confirmed: SugarCRM Buys Mobile Startup Stitch, Shuts It Down". TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  30. Chaykowski, Kathleen (27 March 2018). "Google To Acquire Startup Tenor As Mobile GIF-Sharing Explodes". Forbes. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  31. Takahashi, Dean (3 October 2011). "Adobe acquires cloud font site Typekit as part of larger creative cloud service offering". VentureBeat. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  32. Gannes, Liz (8 March 2012). "Yobongo To Be Acquired And Shut Down By Mixbook". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
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