Venture capital firm Matrix Partners has announced that Josh Hannah, a consumer Internet entrepreneur and investor, will join the firm as general partner in its Silicon Valley office in
Venture capital firm Matrix Partners has announced that Josh Hannah, a consumer Internet entrepreneur and investor, will join the firm as general partner in its Silicon Valley office in Menlo Park, California.
Hannah has launched, turned around and invested in a number of successful Internet companies.
Most notably, he was co-founder and chief executive of Flutter.com (now Betfair.com), a London-based company that revolutionized the gaming industry by building the world’s first online marketplace for sports betting. Today privately held, Betfair manages more than USD50bn in transactions each year.
In his new role at Matrix Partners, Hannah will be investing in innovative young companies across a range of sectors, including Internet, software and other consumer technologies.
The move is the firm’s second partner hire in six months. The firm recruited Dana Stalder, formerly senior vice president at PayPal, to its Menlo Park office in August.
‘Josh and Dana are both exceptionally talented, accomplished, high-energy individuals,’ says Matrix Partners managing partner Timothy Barrows. ‘I am confident in Josh and Dana’s abilities to identify the best opportunities and help entrepreneurs build innovative, industry-leading businesses. As a firm we understand the cyclical nature of the economy and have been successful as a result of our long-term approach to venture capital. We remain optimistic about the potential of consumer and enterprise technologies.’
‘I am thrilled to be joining Matrix Partners. I have profound respect for the firm’s track record of performance as a top-five firm, as well as its reputation among entrepreneurs for being an active, committed, level-headed partner,’ says Hannah.
In 2004 Hannah and a partner purchased eHow, an online how-to directory. They restructured the business, outsourcing content creation to the community and increased revenue and traffic 30-fold before selling the company to Demand Media in 2006.
Hannah is also an angel investor and adviser to Internet entrepreneurs. He serves on the boards of Betfair, Friendster, Minted.com and uShip.
