Babak Nivi

Current

• Founder at Venture Hacks
• Advisor at Various Startups

Past

• Entrepreneur in Residence at Atlas Venture
• Vice President at Songbird
• Entrepreneur in Residence at Bessemer

• Consultant at Atlas Venture
• Associate at Seed Capital Partners
• Graduate Research Assistant at MIT Media Lab

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3 more...

Education

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Internet

Babak Nivi’s Summary

I've helped start companies that are backed by firms like Sequoia and Benchmark. I've worked at venture capital funds like Bessemer and Atlas.

I advise startups and run Venture Hacks, the business school for startups.

I take out the garbage on Wednesday.

Cold calls are welcome!

Babak Nivi’s Specialties:

Specialization is for insects.

Babak Nivi’s Experience

• Founder

  Venture Hacks

  (Financial Services industry)

  March 2007 — Present (2 years 9 months)

  The business school for startups. Co-founded with Naval Ravikant. All of our content is online at http://venturehacks.com

• Advisor

  Various Startups

  (Internet industry)

  January 2006 — Present (3 years 11 months)

  Grockit - Backed by Benchmark
  Songbird - Backed by Sequoia and Atlas
  Newroo - Acquired by MySpace
  Dropcam - Undisclosed
  reMail - Y Combinator
  Advisor to many other startups and entrepreneurs, formally and informally…
  
  Non-advisory roles:
  Kovio - Co-inventor - Backed by Kleiner Perkins
  Veracode - Sourced - Backed by Atlas and Polaris

• Entrepreneur in Residence

  Atlas Venture

  (Partnership; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

  March 2007 — January 2008 (11 months)

  $2B global venture fund. Worked with Jeff Fagnan. Sourced Veracode.

• Vice President

  Songbird

  (Computer Software industry)

  December 2005 — January 2007 (1 year 2 months)

  Songbird is the "Firefox of Media Players". Backed by Sequoia and Atlas.

• Entrepreneur in Residence

  Bessemer

  (Partnership; 11-50 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

  October 2005 — March 2006 (6 months)

  $1B venture fund. Worked with David Cowan.

• Consultant

  Atlas Venture

  (Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

  2004 — 2005 (1 year )

• Associate

  Seed Capital Partners

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

  2001 — 2004 (3 years )

  Venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology startups in Boston and New York.

• Graduate Research Assistant

  MIT Media Lab

  (Educational Institution; Research industry)

  1996 — 2000 (4 years )

  See "Education" below for details.

Babak Nivi’s Education

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Ph.D. Candidate , Electrical Engineering and Computer Science , 1997 — 2000

  Research Assistant to Prof. Joe Jacobson at the Media Lab. Co-developed the first printed inorganic transistor. The technology was spun out into Kovio, a startup backed by Vinod Khosla and Kleiner Perkins. Received a U.S. Patent. Published results in the journal Science. Made parents proud. On leave from the Ph.D. program.

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  M.Eng. , Electrical Engineering and Computer Science , 1997

  Research Assistant to Prof. Neil Gershenfeld at the Media Lab. Received a U.S. Patent for technology to safely send power through the human body. Slept a lot. National Science Foundation Fellow.

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  S.B. , Electrical Engineering and Computer Science , 1997

  Minor in maths.

Additional Information

Babak Nivi’s Honors:

2 U.S. Patents: http://www.nivi.com/patents
Published in Science: http://tinyurl.com/2gqzvf (pdf)
NSF Graduate Research Fellow
My personal web site: http://nivi.com

Babak Nivi’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch