David Siminoff
Encyclopedia
David E. Siminoff is a prominent Silicon Valley
investor and entrepreneur, along with his wife, Ellen Siminoff
. They met when both were students at Stanford Business School, married in 1994, and currently reside in Los Altos Hills, California
.
from USC Film School in 1989 and an MBA from Stanford Business School in 1993.
Having founded global syndicate
barter company EastNet in Moscow
and Eastern Europe
, he graduated from business school and joined Capital Research
, the largest mutual fund in the world as measured by assets under management
. In his tenure at Capital Research
, he focused on the Technology
, Media
& Telecommunications sectors, and his fund was a large early investor in Yahoo!
, eBay
, Amazon
, PayPal
, and America Online. His investments were a key component of a top-performing growth fund, which led to Siminoff being named "Best of the Buy Side" by Institutional Investor Magazine
and receiving numerous accolades from financial industry publications, including Forbes
, The Wall Street Journal
, and Fortune
.
MySpace
founder Chris DeWolfe
observed, "Siminoff is an artsy guy in a suit who puts the literature of what sites do above anything else, even though he's trained as a finance
guy. He was a great advisor for us as we scaled - he has a really clear vision for what's coming in the world. Entrepreneurs are clearly at the top of his pyramid."
The Wall Street Journal
noted that Web executives call him "The Smoking Man," after the mysterious character on television's "X-Files," who pulls the strings behind the scenes.
Institutional Investor Magazine remarked, "You can look at him from a Wall Street
perspective or an industry perspective. David's very close to the Technology
community and has a solid sense of what's going on in the Media
and Technology
businesses. There aren't a lot of investors who get that convergence."
Siminoff later served as the Chief Executive Officer
of Spark Networks
, a publicly traded firm which is the parent company of JDate
. He also founded 4info
, the largest SMS
media company in the United States
, and was a general partner at Venrock, the Rockefeller family's venture capital
arm.
With his wife, Ellen Siminoff
, the couple have been an angel investors/advisors for dozens of successful Silicon Valley
start-ups, including StubHub
, richrelevance
, Tonic Generation, SlideShare, BlogHer
and Crunchyroll
.
He is an active pilot
, sharing flight duties with Eclipse Aviation
partner, Mark Pincus
, the founder of Zynga
.
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
investor and entrepreneur, along with his wife, Ellen Siminoff
Ellen Siminoff
Ellen Siminoff is an entrepreneur and investor. Siminoff was a founding executive and Senior Vice President of Yahoo, where she ran business development, corporate development, and the small business and entertainment business units between 1996 and 2002.Siminoff is currently Chief Executive...
. They met when both were students at Stanford Business School, married in 1994, and currently reside in Los Altos Hills, California
Los Altos Hills, California
Los Altos Hills is an incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 7,922 at the 2010 census. Located in Silicon Valley, Los Altos Hills is one of the wealthiest cities in the nation.-Strictly residential:...
.
Biography
David graduated with Honors from Stanford University, where he was a member of the varsity Swimming & Diving Team, which went on to win multiple Pac-10 and NCAA Championships. He later earned an MFAMaster of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from USC Film School in 1989 and an MBA from Stanford Business School in 1993.
Having founded global syndicate
Syndicate
A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies or entities formed to transact some specific business, or to promote a common interest or in the case of criminals, to engage in organized crime...
barter company EastNet in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, he graduated from business school and joined Capital Research
The Capital Group Companies
The Capital Group Companies is one of the world’s largest investment management organizations with assets of around one trillion USD under management. It comprises a group of investment management companies, including Capital Research and Management, American Funds, Capital Bank and Trust, Capital...
, the largest mutual fund in the world as measured by assets under management
Assets under management
Assets under management is a financial term used denote the market value of funds being managed by a financial instutition on behalf of its clients, investors, depositors, etc. This metric is a sign of size and success against competition...
. In his tenure at Capital Research
The Capital Group Companies
The Capital Group Companies is one of the world’s largest investment management organizations with assets of around one trillion USD under management. It comprises a group of investment management companies, including Capital Research and Management, American Funds, Capital Bank and Trust, Capital...
, he focused on the Technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
, Media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
& Telecommunications sectors, and his fund was a large early investor in Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
, and America Online. His investments were a key component of a top-performing growth fund, which led to Siminoff being named "Best of the Buy Side" by Institutional Investor Magazine
Institutional Investor (magazine)
Institutional Investor magazine is a monthly periodical published by Euromoney Institutional Investor. A separate international edition of the magazine was established in 1976 for readers in Europe and Asia. Capital Cities Communications purchased the magazine in 1984...
and receiving numerous accolades from financial industry publications, including Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, and Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
.
MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
founder Chris DeWolfe
Chris DeWolfe
Chris DeWolfe is an American entrepreneur, and one of the creators of Myspace , of which he is also the former CEO. He has the sixth account ever made on the site. During DeWolfe's tenure, MySpace became the top social network, with over 135 million worldwide unique visitors a month...
observed, "Siminoff is an artsy guy in a suit who puts the literature of what sites do above anything else, even though he's trained as a finance
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
guy. He was a great advisor for us as we scaled - he has a really clear vision for what's coming in the world. Entrepreneurs are clearly at the top of his pyramid."
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
noted that Web executives call him "The Smoking Man," after the mysterious character on television's "X-Files," who pulls the strings behind the scenes.
Institutional Investor Magazine remarked, "You can look at him from a Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
perspective or an industry perspective. David's very close to the Technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
community and has a solid sense of what's going on in the Media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
and Technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
businesses. There aren't a lot of investors who get that convergence."
Siminoff later served as the Chief Executive Officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
of Spark Networks
Spark Networks
Spark Networks owns many special-interest online personal sites, such as JDate.com, BlackSingles.com, ChristianMingle.com and LDSMingle.com; it also owns the general-interest site Spark.com. Spark was started in 1997 by Joe Y. Shapira. David Siminoff formerly served as Chief Executive Officer...
, a publicly traded firm which is the parent company of JDate
JDate
JDate is an online dating service aimed at Jewish singles. The service is one of a number of demographically focused online match-making websites operated by Spark Networks plc.JDate offers two tiers of service: free and premium...
. He also founded 4info
4info
4INFO is an American service offering real-time answers and entertainment SMS messages to consumers, either in response to a search query or as a pushed alert. The company also provides business services, including AdHaven - a mobile advertising platform and ad network, and MediaHaven - an SMS...
, the largest SMS
SMS
SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
media company in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and was a general partner at Venrock, the Rockefeller family's venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
arm.
With his wife, Ellen Siminoff
Ellen Siminoff
Ellen Siminoff is an entrepreneur and investor. Siminoff was a founding executive and Senior Vice President of Yahoo, where she ran business development, corporate development, and the small business and entertainment business units between 1996 and 2002.Siminoff is currently Chief Executive...
, the couple have been an angel investors/advisors for dozens of successful Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
start-ups, including StubHub
Stubhub
StubHub is an online marketplace owned by eBay, which provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events....
, richrelevance
Richrelevance
richrelevance is the leading provider of next-generation personalization and product recommendation tools for enterprise-class eCommerce sites, including Sears.com. Built on the enRICH platform, richrelevance products employ over 30 different recommendation types with cross-placement optimization...
, Tonic Generation, SlideShare, BlogHer
BlogHer
BlogHer refers to a group blog and online community, and to an annual blogging conference for women. Three of the 2005 conference organizers, , , and , began a company, Blogher LLC, which in 2006 also began a blog ad network...
and Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll is an American website and international online community focused on streaming East Asian media including anime, manga, drama, music, electronic entertainment, and auto racing content...
.
He is an active pilot
Aviator
An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...
, sharing flight duties with Eclipse Aviation
Eclipse Aviation
Eclipse Aviation Corporation was the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based manufacturer of the Eclipse 500 very light jet and also at one time proposed developing the Eclipse 400 single-engined jet....
partner, Mark Pincus
Mark Pincus
Mark Jonathan Pincus is an Internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Zynga, which makes online social games. Pincus also founded Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and SupportSoft. Pincus currently serves as CEO of Zynga, which had 232 million monthly active users as of July 1, 2011...
, the founder of Zynga
Zynga
Zynga is a social network game developer located in San Francisco, United States. The company develops browser-based games that work both stand-alone and as application widgets on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace....
.