Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner,Angel

Investor Stage

Seed

Sean O’Sullivan is Managing General Partner of SOSV in 1994, the pioneering venture capital firm that is a world leader in running vertical startup accelerator programs. His first company, MapInfo, grew to a $200 million public company with over 1,000 employees, and popularized street mapping on computers. His first internet company, NetCentric, developed many concepts in internet computing, and he is credited as the cocreator of the term “cloud computing”.

Sean founded JumpStart International, a leading humanitarian organization in conflict zones, in the 2000s, where he oversaw over 3,500 staff at the height of the organization in the Iraq conflict. He was co-founder and managing director of Carma, a 35-person real-time carpooling company. SOSV founded and runs accelerators such as HAX, IndieBio, Food-X, Interface, and Chinaccelerator.

As of 2016, SOSV has $300m in assets under management and is in the top 5% of venture capitalists globally based on return an investment (returns over 19 years average 36% net). He received his Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production from the University of Southern California. He is also an initial and continuing primary supporter of such organizations such as Coderdojo (a global network of coding clubs that 50,000 kids attend every week) and Khan Academy (used by 15 million students to learn every month). He’s on the board of Rensselaer, Khan Academy, and Coderdojo, and a number of private companies.