Tim Draper – Draper Associates

Founder and Managing Partner

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Investment Team

Tim Draper founded Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network, a global network of venture capital funds. He funded Baidu, Tesla, Skype, SpaceX, Twitch, Hotmail, Focus Media, Robinhood, Athenahealth, Box, Cruise Automation, Carta, Planet, PTC and 15 other unicorns at the seed stage.

He is a supporter and global thoughtleader for entrepreneurs everywhere, and is a leading spokesperson for Bitcoin, Blockchain, ICOs and cryptocurrencies, having won the Bitcoin US Marshall’s auction in 2014, invested in over 50 crypto companies, and led investments in Coinbase, Ledger, Tezos, and Bancor, among others.

He created viral marketing, a marketing method for exponentially spreading an electronic service from customer to customer, instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and Skype and other applications, particularly effective for mail and communications applications. Arguably, social media, crowdsourcing and growth hacking are all outgrowths of viral marketing.

He is regularly featured on all major networks as a proponent for entrepreneurship, innovative governance, free markets and Bitcoin, and has received various awards and honors including the World Entrepreneurship Forum’s “Entrepreneur of the World,” and is listed as one of the top 100 most powerful people in finance by Worth Magazine, the top 20 most influential people in Crypto by CryptoWeekly, #1 most networked VC by AlwaysOn, #7 on the Forbes Midas List, and #48 most influential Harvard Alum. Global Guru listed Tim as one of the top 30 Startup Gurus in the world.

In promoting entrepreneurship, he created Draper University of Heroes, a residential and online school based in San Mateo, Ca to help extraordinary people accomplish their life missions. The school has trained 1200 entrepreneurs, from 84 different countries, who have built 400 companies including NVision, and crypto leaders, QTUM, Spacecash, and DataWallet. He started Innovate Your State, a non-profit dedicated to crowdsource innovation in government, and BizWorld, a non-profit that teaches young children how business and entrepreneurship work.

He served on the California State Board of Education, and led a movement for Local Choice in schools culminating in becoming proponent for a statewide initiative for School Vouchers. He also led a statewide initiative to create competitive governance with Six Californias, followed by an initiative for Three Californias.

Tim Draper received a Bachelor of Science from Stanford University with a major in electrical engineering and a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School. He has two honorary doctorates from The International University and Trinity College of Dublin. He wrote the book, “How to be The Startup Hero.”