Sean O'Sullivan
General Partner at SOSV
Sean O'Sullivan
General Partner at SOSV
New York City Metropolitan Area
Overview
Work Experience
Managing General Partner
1994 - Current
Investigate unfilled market needs in human and planetary health, with a focus on pre-seed startup investment, engineering innovation and hardware/life sciences products. SOSV ("the first check in deep tech") runs startup development programs (IndieBio, HAX, and Orbit) for leading deep-tech startups which come from all over the world. As MD, I don't invest directly in companies, our handful of great investment partners do that.
Founder
2012 - 2014
invited to give a speech at Silicon Republic's Digital Ireland Forum on 23 March 2012... and that became a movement. Now we are legion. (redefined the immigration policy for Ireland, opening up Ireland to tech workers from around the world, the world's best and brightest have an open door to come work in Ireland).
Managing Director
2007 - 2014
Worked on overall strategy, sales, and technology. I spend a lot of time with customers trying to figure out how to improve the product and achieve behavioral change. It was an awesome job, in a product category that we helped pioneer, both through the main company and three other companies that spun out of it... millions of people using products created through this company, mostly in China & the US. Shared transport/mobility took off in this time period. (Company was previously known as "Avego" from 2008-July 2013). Lawrence Mulligan took over the CEO role at Carma in October 2014 after I determined I needed to relocate to the US for my son's education. I am still on the board at Carma.
Chairman
2007 - 2009
chairman of a leading technology company in Ireland that provides solutions in the transport, insurance and location based services industry to the european market; turned Chairman role over to Richard Bryce; served on the board since April 2009 until August 2013, when Mapflow was bought out by Lexis Nexus (Reed Elsevier)
cinematographer, cameraman, freelance photojournalist
1998 - 2006
Shoot footage and still photography for documentary films, newspapers and magazines as well as broadcast news organizations. Worked in Los Angeles, Iraq, the far east and other exciting places. Directed and produced two award winning films, "String Worms at Budd Terrace" (2005 Winner of the Silver Award for best feature documentary film on elder issues), and a short narrative comedy "Squirrel Nuts" (2000 winner for best short film from Shorttakes).
co-founder
2003 - 2005
co-founded organization that became largest NGO and humanitarian aid organization in Iraq from September 2003 to beginning of 2005; at height had 125 engineers, 3500 workers, 120 work sites rebuilding homes and government and public facilities (hospitals, cultural facilities, homes, ministry headquarters, college campuses, etc) throughout Baghdad, Fallujah, Najaf... helped launch the organization in Gaza Strip, Palestine as well, where it currently still operates (Baghdad was shut down due to assassinations and kidnapping and torture of key staff, unfortunately).
animal tamer, co-founder & ceo
1994 - 1997
we created a company that quickly became the world leader in internet fax technology with award winning products and extremely great partnerships with industry leaders; but all was for naught. A dot-bomb with something like $8 million in sales vs. $12 million in expenses.
singer songwriter
1992 - 1994
we came out with two albums, Ne me Parlez pas d'Amour & The Planet Janet. Received some critical acclaim, some stinkbombs. Played on 280 radio stations, charted in top 40 on 80, top five in Detroit and number one on some station in New Hampshire. Alas, there was a day when the music died.
co-founder, programmer, sales, marketing, president, etc
1985 - 1992
we created that thing where you type a street address on a computer and you see a map of the area. big idea back in 1984, when we thought of it. What made it really hot was combining databases with the maps. company grew eventually to 1,000 employees and then was bought out by, of all companies, Pitney Bowes.
Education
BS
1981 - 1985
MFA
1999 - 2003
Accelerated Growth Program
2011 - 2012