Tony Espinoza
Investor at Product
Tony Espinoza
Investor at Product
Los Gatos, California
Overview
Work Experience
Product Exec/Advisor, Board Member, & Investor (LP)
2015 - Current
Previous LP @ SV Angel & Benchmark Capital (Google, PayPal, Napster, Zappos, eBay, Twitter, Uber, etc.) These days I help founders navigate the complexity of growing (not simply building) valuable new B2B2C businesses. It's been a privilege to run the product maze with over 50 talented founders and professors. Product-driven, Early Stage Startup Strategy @ Cimphony.ai (Legal AI) Common Tools (AI Platform) Prometheus Technologies (Fintech AI Platform, Board Member) Sonic Data (Audio Content Platform for Gen AI) ZaiNar (StartX, Series A, Next Gen Location Platform/PNT for 5G) Cercle.AI (Healthcare AI Platform for Women) NFW.Earth (Natural Materials Platform funded by Ralph Lauren, Allbirds, Patagonia, & BMW) Solsten (AI-powered Scientific Consumer Insights) ToneStone (Interactive Music Platform from Guitar Hero & Rock Band creator) Fyusion (AI/ML Computer Vision Platform, Acquired by Cox) Ampersand (Acquired by Facebook) Swell.am (Acquired by Apple) Applifier (Acquired by Unity - IPO: NYSE: U) PlugShare (Acquired by EVgo Inc - Nasdaq: EVGO). Happiness Engines AI (RIP) Cranial Medical, UCSF Deep Brain Stim (Acquired by Boston Scientific) Prior Investing and Consulting: SNOCAP (Acquired by Imeem/MySpace, Co-Founder) Napster (Advisor & Investor) Postini (Acquired by Google, Advisor & Investor) Ofoto (Acquired by Kodak, Advisor & Investor) Ancestry.com (DNA) (Acquired by Blackstone) Magic The Gathering (Acquired by Hasboro) PurePlay (Acquired by RockYou) Crackle (Acquired by Sony) BabyCenter.com (Acquired by J&J) Cordblood.com (Acquired by AMAG) Netscape (Acquired by AOL) Bank of America (Early Online Banking) PG&E (1st Intranet) Nomadic Robotics, Robots.com (Acquired by 3com) Homestead (Acquired by Intuit) 3D Studio Max (Acquired by AutoDesk) Microsoft (Virtual Community / VChat) General Magic (RIP) Auctioneer (Founded by David Allen of Getting Things Done) Electronic Arts (Studio/32) IBM Advanced Technology (ONE/2)
Managing Director
2021 - 2022
Open Virtal Assistant Lab (OVAL), as part of Stanford Human-centered AI (HAI), innovates at the intersection of Natural Language Processing (NLP/LLM), Deep Learning, Programming Languages & Human-Computer Interaction in order to enable the next generation platform for privacy-protected, multi-modal voice experiences.
CEO and Board Member
2012 - 2014
Raised $15MM in venture capital from Benchmark, GC, Menlo and Omidyar, restructured the organization and built a world class team to support a thriving, passionate "online to offline" community and marketplace that grew 100% to over 7MM members with active hosts in virtually every country in the world.
Vice President & GM, Social Gaming
2010 - 2012
Post-acquisition, I was responsible for launch of social mobile gaming at Viacom across MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. Scaled up division of 100+ incredibly talented engineers, artists, and game designers on properties ranging from Addicting Games to Jersey Shore to SpongeBob SquarePants to South Park to Colbert Report as well as new IP.
Co-founder & CEO, Social Express
2009 - 2010
Social gaming, cloud-based free-to-play platform & studio. Fast growing user engagement of original IP quickly lead to acquisition by the MTV Networks, Nickelodeon division of Viacom.
Co-founder, President & COO and Board Member
2007 - 2009
Venture-funded Virtual World for tweens combining the indie casual gaming ecosystem with kid-safe chat and social networking. Garnered a 5 star rating from Common Sense Media. SuperSecret surpassed 6 million members leading to acquisition by Knowledge Adventure.
Founder, CEO and Producer/Engineer
2003 - 2007
Built state-of-the-art recording studio and engineered recordings with New Order, Alanis Morissette, David Gray, DJ Shadow, Radiohead, REM, Will Smith, Vanessa Carlton, Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins), Ice Cube as well as supported Grammy Award-winning projects for clients including D'Angelo, Timbaland, The Shins, The Sounds, Third Eye Blind, Kronos Quartet, George Winston, Joe Chiccarelli (U2, Etta James, The White Stripes, Morrissey), Chuck Ainlay (Dire Straits), Russ Elevado (D'Angelo, The Roots, Erykah Badu, Alicia Keys), Dave Frazer (Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Elton John), Jeff Saltzman (The Killers, The Sounds, Fischerspooner). The Soundworks facilities were acquired by non-profit Women's Audio Mission in 2015.
VP Product
2001 - 2003
Launched P2P Kontiki video distribution platform. Funded by Benchmark Capital, Marc Andreessen & Jim Barksdale. The company was acquired by Verisign.
Vice President
1999 - 2001
Post-acquisition, we launched When.com as the front page of AOL 5.0 and successfully scaled technology, team and revenue to support AOL's users (70% of US Households with Internet). Integrated personal event recommendations and data sources including local events from AOL Digital City and MovieFone properties.
Co-founder & VP Product, when.com
1996 - 1999
Lead design & development of ground breaking consumer Web calendar & personalized events platform. UX and patents cross-licensed and still in use today on Google Calendar, Facebook Events, Apple & Microsoft. Best of breed product with rapid user growth (1MM users withing 3 months of launch) lead to acquisition by AOL for 35x return to VC. Funded by Benchmark Capital & Palo Alto Venture Partners (Peter Ziebelman, now Stanford GSB).
Education
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