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Freestyle Capital
Company 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

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]

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.

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. ^ a b c Yuliya Chernova, "Seed Investor Freestyle Capital Churning Out Exits," The Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2014.
  3. ^ a b c d 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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