Jeremy Liew

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Jeremy Liew
Jeremy Liew.jpg
Liew, 2018
Born21 September 1971
Singapore
NationalityDual citizen, Australia, U.S.
Alma materAustralian National University, BSc (Hons) ’93, BA (Hons) ’94
Stanford University, MBA 2000
OccupationVenture capitalist
Board member ofLightspeed
Affirm
The Honest Company
Bonobos
Blockchain.com
Presidio Knolls School
Spouse(s)Ranee Lan
Children2

Jeremy Liew (born 21 September 1971) is a venture capitalist, best known for making the initial seed investment in Snapchat.

Early life and education[]

Liew was born in Singapore and raised in Perth, Western Australia, where his parents still reside.[1] In his senior year in high school, he represented Australia at the International Math Olympiad, where his teammate was future Fields Medalist Terry Tao.[2] He graduated from Australian National University with majors in linguistics and mathematics.[3] Following graduation he joined McKinsey as a business analyst, first working in Sydney and then briefly in Johannesburg. When one of his bosses started CitySearch, a mid-90s Internet pioneer, he moved to Los Angeles to join the company, working in sales and as manager of strategic planning.[4] In 1998, feeling the need to know how to run a business, he went back to school, and in 2000 he received an MBA from Stanford.[5] After graduation from he became V.P. of strategic planning for USA Networks. He was involved in the transition to IAC, when it added companies such as Ticketmaster, Expedia and Hotel.com to its portfolio.[4] He spent three years at AOL/Netscape as a corporate strategy executive[6] and then entered the world of venture capital.[4]

Venture capital[]

In 2006, he joined venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners as its first consumer specialist partner.[7] At the time, he joined Lightspeed it was an obscure firm that specialized in tech startups that were largely unknown outside of Silicon Valley.[8] Early on he noticed a trend. Start-ups that were used predominantly by young women were the most successful. He concluded that young women were the most likely carriers of the next popular cultural trend.[9] To better understand the young women of America, he looked outside of Silicon Valley to Los Angeles and New York to observe their new consumer preferences; and, then, to be data driven about this.[10] In 2015, he noted that 10/11 boards he was on at the time were outside of Silicon Valley.[11][12] This "follow the woman" thesis has helped him through his investing career. In 2012, a partner told him that his daughter and her friends were obsessed with a new app, Snapchat, and he should look into it. This led to a meeting with co-founder Evan Spiegel.[13] In 2012, he was the first investor in Snapchat. The initial investment was $485,000; with following rounds of investments Lightspeed had a total of $8.1 million invested. This increased 250-fold in value to just under $2 billion at the time of Snapchat going public in 2017.[14] Relations between Spiegel and Liew quickly turned sour. Spiegel felt he was taken advantage of with an onerous agreement for the initial seeding. This was later modified giving Lightspeed further shares at a discount. Mr. Liew remains special to Snapchat in one way; he was the first and last investor to get special terms from the company.[15][16] The success Liew brought Lightspeed with this "monster" IPO put the firm, having become a megafund,[17] into the elite of the competitive V.C. world; the return on the IPO was greater than what the firm had raised in 2006. Liew was described as a big winner, "the investor who could bag a dragon" and gets do a victory lap.[8]

Notable early round funding with continued involvement

  • Bonobos (upscale, e-commerce-driven apparel company, now a subsidiary of Walmart): first institutional investor and early member of the board.[18][19]
  • The Honest Company (consumer goods company, founded by actress Jessica Alba): first investor, on board[20][21][22][23]
  • Affirm (financial lender of installment loans for consumers to use at the point of sale to finance a purchase): co-first institutional investor and member of the board[24][20][25]

Consumer, game and media investments: Jeremy Liew has been a featured speaker[26] and moderator at conferences on video game monetization[27] and has been called a "social game visionary."[28] He has invested in a number of successful gaming companies, including Playdom (acquired by Disney), Serious Business (bought by Zynga), Kixeye,[29] and Fan Controlled Football.[30] The framework for evaluating these potential consumer gaming products includes whether "they have some native advantage that makes their games more likely to be a hit," with the potential to become pop culture and build a new habit. He feels that user engagement is more important than design. He is skeptical of Facebook games, referring to them as "highly deterministic and predictable."[29][31] He was an active investor in media and entertainment, with startups including Giphy (sold to Facebook), HQ, Cheddar Inc., and Beme (acquired by CNN). Successful exits have included Flixster (acquired by Warner Brothers), Kongregate (acquired by GameStop and later by Modern Times), and Slice (acquired by Rakuten).[2][32] Recognizing that consumer trends begin with women and are best spread by word-of-mouth,[33] led Liew (who heard about it that way) to make a $7 million investment in Rothy's. The company makes unique shoes for women that are comfortable, stylish, durable, washable, made from recycled plastic bottles and are recyclable.[34]

Among early pioneer companies of hot categories that didn't live up to expectations:[6]

  • Zest AI (formerly ZestFinance) started out as an online platform to consumers for point-of-sale subprime financing, using AI to screen for suitable borrowers; and, now sells software.[6][35]
  • Living Social was a daily deals firm with a meteoric rise, but failed, and in 2016 was bought by Groupon for $0.[36]
  • Sidecar, the first ridesharing company; it lost out to Uber and Lyft and folded in 2015.[37]
  • Mic, a media and internet company catering to millennials: By April, 2017, it had raised $52 million and was said to be worth hundreds of millions;[38] it was sold in November, 2018, for $5 million to Bustle. Liew ascribed the collapse to a change in Facebook algorithms.[39]

Digital Currency: Liew is a proponent of cryptocurrency and has invested in businesses dealing with digital currency.[40] He sees their value in times of political instability when citizens lose faith in their own currency. He co-led the first venture round for Blockchain.com. He favors bitcoin, as it is the most traded.[41] He has predicted the price of bitcoin to be $500,000 by 2030.[42]

Liew has been named to the Midas List, recognizing the best deal makers in V.C., multiple times.[43] In August 2021, just shy of his 50th birthday,[44] Liew announced he will step back from investing, though he will remain a partner at Lightspeed.[45]

Philanthropy[]

He is a founding trustee of the Presidio Knolls School, a Mandarin immersion PreK-8 school in San Francisco.[7] After the 2021 Atlanta murder of six Asian women, Liew has joined with other tech investors to fund causes to fight anti-Asian hate.[46][47] Liew and his wife Ranee Lan were described as instrumental in raising the money for a playground at Sue Bierman Park, in San Francisco's Embarcadero, across from the Ferry Building.[48] They have also been donors to and supporters of the construction of affordable housing in San Francisco.[49][50]

Personal[]

Liew is married with two children.[51] Liew has lived in the U.S. for twenty years and is a dual citizen of Australia and the U.S., but he still considers himself an Aussie.[3] Liew has been a student of the San Francisco Movement Practice.[52][53] If he could do it over, Liew would change one thing in his career. He would go right into investing and skipped the consulting and operating experience; he feels that would have made him a better investor.[6] "The best training for doing any job is doing that job. Not doing a related job."[54]

Political views[]

Liew rejects grievance politics from the Right or Left. He rejects the idea that America can go back to the good old days, either nationally or locally. After holding out on becoming a citizen for over a decade, he felt compelled to vote in 2016 and became a citizen. Although not a knee jerk Democrat, he has supported Democrats on a national level and voted for moderates in local elections.[55]

References[]

  1. ^ McDuling, John (2017-11-09). "Amazon is not invincible, says Silicon Valley's most powerful Aussie Jeremy Liew". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  2. ^ a b "Jeremy Liew | Bio | Premiere Speakers Bureau". premierespeakers.com. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  3. ^ a b "Meet the Aussie, Jeremy Liew, who made billions on Snapchat". Australian Financial Review. 2017-03-02. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
  4. ^ a b c Staff, Recode (2017-03-05). "Full transcript: Venture Capitalist Jeremy Liew on Recode Decode". Vox. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  5. ^ Lee, Allen (2021-01-24). "10 Things You Didn't Know About Jeremy Liew". Money Inc. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
  6. ^ a b c d "Jeremy Liew: If I were to go back, I'd skip all my operating experience and go straight into VC". Pando. 2014-12-17. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  7. ^ a b "Jeremy Liew". Gold House. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  8. ^ a b "Snap vaults venture investor Lightspeed into the Silicon Valley elite". Reuters. 2017-03-01. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  9. ^ "20VC: The Snapchat Memo: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on The 4 Key Elements To Consider When Evaluating A Consumer Social Product, What is Good/Great/World Class For Retention, Usage and Downloads in Consumer Social Today & The Core Insight Development of Evan Spiegel's That Has Changed Social Products Forever". 20VC. 2021-02-24. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  10. ^ "Jeremy Liew on What He Will, And Won't, Invest in Right Now". www.strictlyvc.com. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  11. ^ "Jeremy Liew on Snapchat, Anonymous Apps, and the Fallibility of Intuition". www.strictlyvc.com. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  12. ^ Coren, Michael J. "A VC firm's simple investment thesis: Follow the women". Quartz. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  13. ^ Carlson, Nicholas. "This Startup Investor's Teen Daughter Helped Him Turn $500,000 Into $31 Million In 18 Months". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  14. ^ Taylor, Harriet (2017-03-02). "The Snap IPO means a huge payday for two VC firms". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  15. ^ Benner, Katie (2017-02-23). "Snapchat Founders' Grip Tightened After a Spat With an Early Investor". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
  16. ^ "Snap supporters find a scapegoat in Jeremy Liew". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  17. ^ Konrad, Alex. "VC Firm Lightspeed Raises $4 Billion In Startup Landscape Shaken By COVID-19". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  18. ^ "Walmart bought Bonobos — and the bros aren't happy". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
  19. ^ Liew, Jeremy (2017-06-16). "Congratulations to Bonobos and Jet". Lightspeed Venture Partners. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
  20. ^ a b "Jeremy Liew". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  21. ^ "Honest Company Stock: What You Should Know About the Honest Company". www.cityindex.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  22. ^ Borison, Rebecca. "Jessica Alba's Startup Raises $70 Million At A Nearly $1 Billion Valuation". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  23. ^ "Jeremy Liew net worth, bio and Honest Company, Inc insider trades". Benzinga. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  24. ^ "Affirm's Journey from Startup to IPO". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  25. ^ "UPDATE 3-Max Levchin's Affirm sees stock nearly double in Nasdaq debut". Reuters. 2021-01-13. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  26. ^ GraftPublisherJune 23, Kris; 2009 (2009-06-23). "Social Gaming Summit: In-Depth On The State Of Social Gaming". Game Developer. Retrieved 2021-10-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  27. ^ SmithJune 12, Justin; 2008. "Social Gaming Summit is this Friday in San Francisco". Retrieved 2021-10-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  28. ^ April 27; 2008. "What is Games 2.0? Conversation with Social Gaming Visionary Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners". Retrieved 2021-10-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  29. ^ a b "Understanding How to Sell VCs on Your Game, Part II: Jeremy Liew, Lightspeed Venture Partners - Game Design Secrets [Book]". www.oreilly.com. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  30. ^ Peter, Josh. "Another new league, Fan Controlled Football, starts Saturday with totally different rules". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  31. ^ "Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew is on the hunt for always-on media startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  32. ^ Cowley, Ric; Editor. "Modern Times Group to acquire casual games publisher Kongregate for $55 million". pocketgamer.biz. Retrieved 2021-10-20. {{cite web}}: |last2= has generic name (help)
  33. ^ "Keys to a Successful Viral App with Snapchat Investor Jeremy Liew". Commaful. Retrieved 2021-10-27.
  34. ^ Mzezewa, Tariro (2017-06-06). "What if Your Environmentally Correct Shoes Were Also Cute?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  35. ^ "Can an A.I. algorithm help end unfair lending? This company says yes". Fortune. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  36. ^ "rip- livingsocial the fast rise and slow demise". Washington Post.
  37. ^ Hawkins, Andrew J. (2015-12-29). "Uber rival Sidecar is ending ride-sharing and delivery services this week". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  38. ^ "Mic Raises US$21 Million, Intends to Expand Video Content -". www.portada-online.com. 2017-04-10. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  39. ^ "Pivoting to nowhere: How Mic ran out of radical makeovers". Digiday. 2018-11-30. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  40. ^ "To grow, Bitcoin may need to shed its world of intrigue". CNBC. 2014-01-30. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  41. ^ Castillo, Michelle (2017-06-20). "The first investor in Snapchat explains why the bitcoin rally is just getting started". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  42. ^ "The first investor in Snapchat thinks each bitcoin could realistically be worth $500,000 by 2030 — Here's how". www.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  43. ^ "Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on Imposter Syndrome & Breakthrough Ideas". The Proof. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  44. ^ "Capital firms resignations". Axios.
  45. ^ "Lightspeed Partner Jeremy Liew Steps Back at Firm". Bloomberg.com. 2021-09-17. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  46. ^ Kolodny, Jessica Bursztynsky,Lora (2021-03-24). "Investors in Airbnb, TikTok and Snap join forces to fight anti-Asian hate". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  47. ^ Ax, Joseph (2021-04-30). "Asian-American groups push for socio-political clout with funding surge". Reuters. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  48. ^ "Playground at Sue Bierman Park" (PDF). bcnasf.
  49. ^ www.bizjournals.com https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2020/12/14/sfhaf-affordable-housing-home-for-good-fund.html. Retrieved 2021-12-23. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  50. ^ "San Francisco Donors Have a New Way to Invest in Affordable Housing". The San Francisco Foundation. 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2021-12-23.
  51. ^ "Q&A: Jeremy Liew". ANU Reporter. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  52. ^ "The Robin Zander Show: Jeremy Liew, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners on Doing the Impossible and Staying Relevant at 50 on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  53. ^ "SF Movement Practice". sfmovementpractice.pike13.com. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  54. ^ "Career Advice: Jeremy Liew". Breakout List. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  55. ^ Liew, Jeremy (2016-11-07). "I immigrated to the US 20 years ago. This is the first US election that I will vote in". Medium. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
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