Maveron, a VC firm with offices in Seattle and San Francisco, this morning announced that it has named Andrew Trader (who is often referred to simply as A.T.) as a partner. Trader actually joined Maveron back in 2010 as Entrepreneur-in-Residence, but is now taking on a more expanded role at the firm.
According to its website, Maveron’s portfolio includes companies like Groupon, eBay, Shutterfly, Drugstore.com and SAY Media.
In 2007, Andrew Trader was a founding member of Zynga, where he managed business operations including revenue management, marketing, user acquisition, business development, and strategic partners.
He was unceremoniously ousted from the company around March 2010.
Before Zynga, Trader was the CEO of Utah Street Networks, the operator of Tribe.net, one of the first social networking sites (acquired by Cisco in 2007). He was also the co-founder of Coremetrics, (acquired by IBM last year).
Trader recently joined the board of freshly funded game developer Kixeye. Ironically, Kixeye isn’t backed by Maveron (at least not yet).
Last but not least, he was also involved in a lawsuit. Last year, Abu Dhabi-based investment company Alpha Investments sued Zynga for restricting a share sale on SecondMarket.
Trader had attempted to sell close to $13 million in Zynga’s stock (1 million shares) to Alpha Investments, but the social games developer later said it would only allow the transaction if the firm agreed not to sell the shares until 180 days after an initial public offering.
According to some media reports, the attorney for Alpha filed to dismiss the case in June 2011.
Maveron is a venture capital firm that exclusively invests in consumer companies. Founded in 1998 by Dan Levitan and Howard Schultz, the firm has offices in Seattle and San Francisco. Representative Maveron investments include Altius Education, eBay, Capella Education, General Assembly, Julep, Shutterfly, Trupanion and zulily. Maveron’s name was coined from the words “maverick” and “vision.”
As EVP of Sales & Business Development, A.T. is probably trying to contact you right now. You should take his call. A.T.’s interest in online gaming dates back to 1978 playing Dungeons & Dragons on Control Data Corp’s PLATO computer, the first MMOG! Prior to Zynga he was the CEO of Tribe.net, a social network sold to Cisco in 2007. He was also the co-founder of Coremetrics, a leader in website marketing analytics.
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