Geoffrey Arone
Geoffrey Arone is an American blockchain investor and advisor.[1]
Career
Arone is currently a partner at Arrington XRP Capital, a hedge fund focused on crypto assets and blockchain tech[2]. He also advises Bloom Protocol[3], a company reinventing the credit industry with decentralized scoring powered by Ethereum and IPFS. Previously, he was Chief Product Officer at Whitepages.[4] Prior to that, he was Chief Scientist of Experian, which acquired SafetyWeb in May 2011.[5] Arone co-founded SafetyWeb in June 2009 and raised ~ $8 million from Battery Ventures and First Round Capital.[6] SafetyWeb is a cloud-based personal security company whose products include SafetyWeb Family and myID.
Prior to SafetyWeb, Arone was the CEO and co-founder of DanceJam with MC Hammer and Anthony Young. While running DanceJam, Arone raised two rounds of venture capital and sold the company to Grind Networks in 2009.[7]
In late 2004, Arone co-founded Flock, the first web browser with social network integration, with Bart Decrem and Anthony Young. In all, Flock raised ~ $28 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, and Fidelity Ventures. Nearly 6 years and 14 million downloads later, Flock was acquired by Zynga.[8]
Education
Arone has also held product positions at RealNetworks, Informatica, and Oracle. He holds a Sc.B. in Neural Science from Brown University and his PhD work was also in Neural Science. He earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.[citation needed]
References
- ^ "Blockchain Startup Bloom Taps Geoffrey Arone As Chief Operating Officer". BlockTribune. June 4, 2019.
- ^ "Michael Arrington Has a New $100 Million Hedge Fund That Will Be Valued in Ripple's XRP". Retrieved 19 February 2018.
- ^ "Introducing Bloom Advisor: Geoffrey Arone". Retrieved 19 February 2018.
- ^ "Geoffrey Arone Joins Whitepages as Executive Vice President of Products | Business Wire". www.businesswire.com. Retrieved 2016-09-07.
- ^ Arrington, Michael. "Experian Acquired Child Safety Startup SafetyWeb". TechCrunch. AOL. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
- ^ "SafetyWeb secures $8M in funding". Denver Business Journal. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
- ^ Arrington, Michael. "DanceJam Finds A Buyer". TechCrunch. AOL. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
- ^ Ha, Anthony. "Zynga Buys Social Browser Flock". VentureBeat. Retrieved 12 April 2012.