Arjun Sethi (entrepreneur)

Arjun Sethi (born January 15, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur, investor and executive. He is co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Tribe Capital. He previously was partner at Social Capital and served as an executive at Yahoo! where he launched Yahoo! Livetext. Before that, he was co-founder and CEO of MessageMe (acquired by Yahoo!) and he was CEO of Lolapps, the developer behind Ravenwood Fair.[1]

Arjun Sethi
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Maryland
OccupationVenture Capitalist
Employer(s)Co-founder and Partner at Tribe Capital
Known for

Career

Lolapps

In 2008, Sethi took the role as CEO of Lolapps, which developed social games on the Facebook platform. Lolapps developed Ravenwood Fair which had 10 million monthly active users.[2] At its peak, Lolapps had 150 million monthly active users across its portfolio of games.[3]

Lolapps merged with game publisher 6waves in 2011[4] which made the merged entity 6waves Lolapps the second largest game publisher on Facebook measured by monthly active users after Zynga.[5] Sethi became Chief Product Officer in 6waves Lolapps, which went on to raise $35 million in funding from Korean gaming company Nexon.[6]

In 2012, 6waves Lolapps laid off most of its development team and Sethi left to join venture capital firm Social Capital as an entrepreneur in residence.[7]

6waves Lolapps subsequently rebranded itself as 6waves, dropping Lolapps from its name.[8] In January 2022, Stillfront Group acquired 6waves for $201M.[9]

Angel investments

Sethi began angel investing at Lolapps. He is now considered one of the top angel investors in Silicon Valley.[10] His angel investments include Opendoor, Gusto and Long-Term Stock Exchange.[10]

MessageMe and Yahoo

Later in 2012, Sethi became co-founder and CEO of mobile messaging app MessageMe. MessageMe reached 5 million users within 75 days of launch.[11] The company raised close to $12 million across two rounds of funding led by Greylock Partners.[12]

MessageMe's rapid growth led to Facebook revoking its access to the Facebook Platform’s “Find Friends” functionality for competitive reasons.[13] Leaked internal Facebook emails expressed concern about resulting negative publicity for Facebook, particularly given Sethi’s relationship with Social Capital and previous position at Lolapps.[14]

Yahoo acquired MessageMe in 2014 for a price between $30 million and $40 million, [15] shut down the app MessageMe, and put Sethi and the ex-MessageMe team to work on a Yahoo messaging app meant to compete with Snapchat and WhatsApp.[16] Yahoo's acquisition of MessageMe was part of CEO Marissa Mayer's larger strategy to bring in new talent via small startup acquisitions.[17]

In 2015, Sethi and the former MessageMe team launched Yahoo! Livetext, an audio-free video messaging app. It never gained significant traction and Yahoo shut down the product in 2016.[16]

Social Capital

In early 2016, Sethi left Yahoo to join Social Capital as an investing partner focused on consumer startups.[16]

At Social Capital, Sethi backed the firm's investments in and served on the board of directors of Carta, Relativity Space, Cover, and CryptoMove.[18]

Tribe Capital

In 2018, three former Social Capital investing partners, Sethi, Ted Maidenberg and Jonathan Hsu, left to form Tribe Capital with $200 million targeted for its first fund.[19] Tribe invests in early-stage startups[20] and uses quantitative data to inform investment decisions.[21][22]

Tribe raised $335 million for its second fund and $394 million for its third fund.[23] As of July 2021, Tribe has approximately $1.5 billion in assets under management.[24]

At Tribe, Sethi made its first investment in cryptocurrency trading platform SFOX.[25] He also followed on to his investments in Carta,[26] Relativity Space, and Cover. Other Tribe investments include FTX,[27] Kraken,[28] Applied Intuition,[29] EquipmentShare, Pipe Technologies,[30] Docker,[31] Republic,[32] Instabase, and Momentus.[33] Sethi serves on the board of directors of Kraken and Docker.

In 2020, Tribe launched its investing program Firstlook to allow accredited investors to co-invest in selected companies alongside Tribe.[34]

In March 2021, Tribe and Arrow Capital co-sponsored a SPAC raising $240 million, led by Sethi as CEO.[35][36] Tribe filed plans for a second SPAC IPO later that month, with Odell Beckham Jr. serving as strategic advisor.[37]

In July 2022, Tribe announced that it launched an incubator program Tribe Crypto Labs, which had raised $25M from outside investors.[27]

Nibiru

In September 2022, Sethi co-founded a crypto derivatives trading protocol named Nibiru. He raised $7.5M at a $100M valuation.[38]

References
  1. Cutler, Kim-Mai (2012-05-08). "Former Lolapps CEO Arjun Sethi Lands At Former Facebook VP's Chamath Palihapitiya's Fund As An EIR". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
  2. "LOLapps launches a novel expansion for Ravenwood Fair Facebook game". February 22, 2011.
  3. "Creator of the fierce Doom and Quake games tries his hand at a cute Facebook app". October 20, 2010.
  4. Geron, Tomio. "Lolapps Merges With 6Waves In Social Gaming Developer-Publisher Tie-Up". Forbes.
  5. "Lolapps merges with 6waves to build social gaming powerhouse". July 18, 2011.
  6. Cutler, Kim-Mai (2012-03-20). "6waves Lolapps Sheds Most Of Its Development Team To Focus on Publishing Games". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  7. Cutler, Kim-Mai (2012-05-08). "Former Lolapps CEO Arjun Sethi Lands At Former Facebook VP's Chamath Palihapitiya's Fund As An EIR". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  8. "6waves drops "Lolapps" name entirely, announces publishing deals with 32 social developers". www.adweek.com. 28 March 2012.
  9. "Stillfront acquires 6Waves for $201m". www.gamesindustry.biz. 21 January 2022.
  10. The 2020 Midas Brink List: Meet Venture Capital's Up-And-Comers
  11. Santos, Alexis (22 May 2013). "MessageMe chat app amasses 5 million users in 75 days across Android and iOS". Engadget.
  12. Lunden, Ingrid (16 May 2013). "MessageMe Raises a $10M Series A Led by Greylock As It Gears Up for Money and Premium Services in Its Rich Messaging App". TechCrunch.
  13. Cutler, Kim-Mai (16 March 2013). "Facebook Brings Down the Hammer Again: Cuts Off MessageMe's Access to Its Social Graph". TechCrunch.
  14. "Facebook sealed exhibits in Six4Three v. Facebook" (PDF).
  15. Murphy, David (4 October 2014). "Yahoo Beats Snapchat to the Punch With MessageMe Acquisition". PCMag.
  16. MacMillan, Douglas (4 February 2016). "Yahoo Loses Mobile Entrepreneur Arjun Sethi to Venture Firm". Wall Street Journal.
  17. Kim, Eugene (4 February 2016). "These people left Yahoo less than 3 years after their startups got acquired by Marissa Mayer". Business Insider.
  18. "Another Social Capital Partner Departs Venture Capital Firm". Bloomberg. 16 June 2018.
  19. Chernova, Yuliya (4 September 2018). "Former Social Capital Partners Seek $200 Million for Tribe Capital". Wall Street Journal.
  20. Robinson, Melia (6 July 2018). "We have new details about the VC firm being started by the Social Capital defectors — including its official name". Business Insider.
  21. Clark, Kate (5 June 2019). "Social Capital Reincarnated". TechCrunch.
  22. MacColl, Margaux (2 April 2021). "How Tribe Capital's Arjun Sethi uses data, not feelings, to choose the startups his fund backs". Business Insider.
  23. Chapman, Lizette (23 December 2022). "VC firms are getting stingier with startups. Tribe Capital's struggles show why". Fortune.
  24. Segal, Julie (15 July 2021). "Cracking Private Companies: Investors Buy Into Tribe Capital's Vision of Disrupting Silicon Valley Itself". Institutional Investor.
  25. Verhage, Julie (16 August 2018). "Former Social Capital Partners Make First Investment Since Exit". Bloomberg.
  26. Clark, Kate (27 December 2018). "Cap table management tool Carta valued at $800M with new funding". TechCrunch.
  27. Melinek, Jacquelyn (19 July 2022). "VC firm Tribe Capital raises $25M to launch crypto incubator program". TechCrunch.
  28. Tan, Gillian (20 May 2021). "Crypto Platform Kraken Adds Tribe Capital's Sethi to Its Board". Bloomberg.
  29. Abu Omar, Abeer; Daher, Nadine (9 November 2020). "Silicon Valley Firm Joins Gulf Investors to Fund Tech Deals". Bloomberg.
  30. Geron, Tomio (7 October 2020). "Startups Tap Upfront Cash Alternative to Venture Capital". Wall Street Journal.
  31. Miller, Ron (16 March 2021). "Docker nabs $23M Series B as new developer focus takes shape". TechCrunch.
  32. Loizos, Connie (19 October 2021). "Republic may build a secondary exchange for digital securities, fueled by $150 million in new funding". TechCrunch.
  33. Sheetz, Michael (7 October 2020). "Momentus to become the latest space stock with ticker 'MNTS,' valued at $1.2 billion in SPAC deal". CNBC.
  34. Bernard, Zoë (2 October 2020). "Tribe Capital Plans Challenge to AngelList". The Information.
  35. Mosqueda, Mars W. (8 March 2021). "Arrow Capital-backed tech SPAC Tribe Capital Growth raises $240m in US IPO". Deal Street Asia.
  36. Tan, Gillian (15 December 2020). "Tribe Capital, Founded by Social Capital Alum, Plan SPAC". Bloomberg.
  37. Sebastian, Dave (25 March 2021). "Odell Beckham Jr. Jumps Into SPAC Surge". Wall Street Journal.
  38. Singh, Manish (23 September 2022). "Arjun Sethi's crypto derivatives protocol Nibiru raises maiden funding at $100M valuation". TechCrunch.
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