When Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg took venture money from True Ventures in 2005 and others he was just 21 years old. Now the firm has invested in someone even younger – 19 year old Brian Wong.
Wong founded Kiip.me (pronounced Wii-style as “keep me”), a mobile advertising platform that is bridging the mobile and gaming worlds. I don’t know much more about it, but whatever he’s doing it was enough to catch the attention of True Ventures partner Phil Black. He’s invested $200,000 in Kiip.me, he tells me, as part of a round that is still filling out.
As young as he is, Wong has experience with startups. He briefly worked at Digg and helped launch their Android application. And he founded Followformation, an automated categorized Twitter discovery tool. He’s Canadian, skipped four grades and finished college when he was 18.
He may be the youngest entrepreneur to raise venture capital – Mark Zuckerberg was just 20 when he raised early money for Facebook. Mullenweg as I said above was 21. We’ve got our crack team of research interns looking into exactly who holds the record as the youngest entrepreneur to have raised a proper venture round.
Kiip.me is still a few months away from launching. Stay tuned.
Kiip is a rewards network, founded by Brian Wong, Courtney Guertin, and Amadeus Demarzi.
Brian Wong is the co-founder and CEO of Kiip (pronounced “keep”), a category-creating mobile rewards network that is redefining mobile advertising through an innovative platform that leverages “moments of achievement” in games and apps to simultaneously benefit users, developers and advertisers. Backed by Relay Ventures, Interpublic Group, Hummer Winblad, True Ventures, Digital Garage and others, the company has raised $15.4 million in funding to date. Kiip has been named one of the world’s 50 Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company,...
Founded in 2006, True Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups. With three funds and approximately $600 million in capital under management, True provides seed and Series A funding to the most talented entrepreneurs in today’s fastest growing markets. With a mission to make the world a better place for entrepreneurs, True encourages each founder’s vision and has built resources to empower the employees, families and communities of its portfolio companies. The...
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
