Jeff Bussgang

Jeff Bussgang is an American entrepreneur, Harvard Business School Lecturer,^[1] and general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, a seed and early-stage investment firm focused on technology companies. He is also a well-known blogger in the entrepreneur/venture capital world.

Education and career

The son of Julian J. Bussgang, founder of The Bussgang Theorem, Jeff Bussgang grew up in the Greater Boston area and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and a Ford Scholar.

After graduation, Bussgang started out as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. He left and joined his first entrepreneurial venture Open Market, an internet commerce software leader, where he was the VP of marketing and business development. Open Market went public in 1996. Bussgang co-founded Upromise, a loyalty marketing and financial services firm, and became its president and COO. Upromise was acquired by Sallie Mae in 2006.^[2] Bussgang also co-authored a Harvard Business Review article in the mid-90s on turning the Internet into a medium for business. In 2003, Bussgang joined Flybridge Capital Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Boston that closed their fourth fund in 2016.^[3] He also serves as a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School where he has written over a dozen Case Studies^[4] and teaches a class called Launching Technology Ventures (LTV).^[5]

In 2010, Bussgang authored a book on venture capital and entrepreneurship called Mastering the VC Game,^[6] which was featured in The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, TechCrunch, and The Financial Times. He is the creator and writer behind Seeing Both Sides,^[7] a widely read blog for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs alike. Bussgang also serves as co-chairman of the board for educational non-profit, Facing History and Ourselves,^[8] as co-founder and co-chair of immigration reform non-profit, the Global EIR Coalition,^[9] as co-founder and vice-chair of progressive policy organization, The Alliance for Business Leadership, and on the board of Edx, an open online course provider created by Harvard and MIT.

Investing

Bussgang focuses on seed and early-stage technology companies. His portfolio companies include 33Across, BlueTarp Financial, Cartera Commerce, Codecademy, DataXu, i4cp, Infracommerce, Jibo, Open English, Plastiq, Restorando, Sample6, SavingStar, Sentenai, SmackHigh, tracx, Valore, and ZestFinance. Previous investments include Brontes Technologies (acquired by 3M),^[10] BzzAgent (acquired by Tesco),^[11] OneForty (acquired by Hubspot),^[12] Taris (acquired by Allergen)^[13] and Tremor Video (IPO: TRMR).^[14]

References