Canvas Ventures Announces Mike Ghaffary as New General Partner
PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif., March 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Canvas Ventures announced today the appointment of Mike Ghaffary as general partner. Previously, Ghaffary served as CEO of Eat24 and was an early executive at Yelp for nearly seven years, joining before the company's IPO. He also served as a general partner at Social Capital. Ghaffary joins General Partners Paul Hsiao, Gary Little and Rebecca Lynn on the Canvas investment team.
At Canvas, Ghaffary will focus on investing in marketplaces, consumer and software companies. Prior to Canvas, he made several marketplace investments, including HubHaus, CloudKitchens, and Faire (formerly Indigo Fair). In addition, he has invested in Strava, Optimizely, Metromile, Skip Scooters, Superhuman, and several others.
"We are thrilled to welcome Mike to the Canvas Team," said Canvas General Partner Rebecca Lynn. "He is an experienced operator and investor, with a vast network that he can tap to help our portfolio companies. His investment track record, which includes venture and angel investing, is very impressive."
Ghaffary operated for over 10 years at Yelp, Eat24, TrialPay and Stitcher, leading more than 200 partnerships with companies like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and the larger ecosystem of on-demand and marketplace startups. He led several acquisitions, including Eat24, where he was asked to be CEO of the company as a subsidiary of Yelp.
Said Ghaffary: "Canvas has a reputation of being a founder's first call. I had the opportunity to speak with literally dozens of founders who have worked with the partners at Canvas, and they all told me how helpful and thoughtful Canvas has been. When asked to help, Canvas partners excel at recruiting executive management, advising companies on go-to-market strategies, business development, marketing, financing and more. I like how they operate, and it aligns with how I strive to operate too."
"Since founding Canvas, we have distinguished ourselves with our early-stage investments in some of the best emerging marketplaces with network-effect business models. Mike's considerable experience here will further differentiate Canvas," said Canvas General Partner Paul Hsiao.
Canvas General Partner Gary Little said, "We first met Mike ten years ago when he was the co-founder of the startup Stitcher. Since then he's become an accomplished investor with a string of exciting companies in his portfolio. Importantly to us, Mike is also a good stylistic and cultural fit for our team."
About Mike Ghaffary
A native of Silicon Valley, Ghaffary had a passion for writing software at a young age. He went on to earn degrees in computer science at University of Southern California (USC) and an MBA from Harvard Business School and a JD from Harvard Law School. Ghaffary started his investing career at Summit Partners after graduate school. In addition to co-founding three startups, serving as VP of Business Development at Yelp, CEO of Eat24, and general partner at Social Capital, Ghaffary has been a prolific angel investor.
About Canvas Ventures
Canvas Ventures is an early-stage venture firm based in Portola Valley, CA. As thesis investors, the partnership specializes in marketplaces, new enterprise, and fintech. Previous to Canvas, our general partners led investments in top-performing IPOs: MuleSoft (2017) and Lending Club (2014). Canvas raised $175 million for its inaugural fund in 2013 and $300 million for its second fund in 2016. In addition to General Partners Mike Ghaffary, Paul Hsiao, Gary Little and Rebecca Lynn, the Canvas investment team includes Executive in Residence Jun-Sheng Li. The firm is proud to have been named #1 in the 2018 "Diversity Index" by The Information.
Canvas is known for its investments in marketplace companies such as Transfix and Zola; new enterprise investments like Kinetica, Figure Eight, and Platform9; and fintech companies such as Future Advisor, Gabi and Roofstock.
SOURCE Canvas Ventures
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