Entrepreneur and Investor
San Francisco Bay Area
Entrepreneur and Investor
San Francisco Bay Area
Karl Jacob is a 4 time Entrepreneur and has been building and advising companies for the last 14 years. He has also worked as a manager at Sun Microsystems and an executive at Microsoft. In his career he has raised over $200 million from prestigious investors like Amerindo, Microsoft, eBay, Benchmark Capital, Deutsche Bank, Ignition Partners, Vulcan Ventures and numerous others. He has started 4 companies from no revenue to significant revenues or being acquired. One of his companies, Dimension X, was acquired by Microsoft in 1997 and another Keen was acquired by AT&T in 2007. His companies have generated over $300 million in returns to investors and over $150 million in revenue per year. He has received numerous awards including being named one of Business Week’s top ten up and comers.
Jacob is currently the CEO and Founder of Wallop a Microsoft spinout funded by Bay Partners and Norwest. Previuosly Jacob took Cloudmark from no revenue and $50,000 in investment to $16 million in investment and millions in revenue. Prior to this Jacob joined Benchmark Capital as an entrepreneur-in-residence in July 1999, charged with creating the "next big thing." He formed Keen, and was the CEO and President until May of 2002. While at Keen, he led the company to be credited as one of the fastest growing ecommerce company in history taking it from no revenue to sustained revenue. The company is profitable and generated over $100 million in revenue last year. During Jacob’s tenure the company was recognized by Fortune as a Cool Company. Prior to Keen he spent two years as a Microsoft executive, following Microsoft's acquisition of Dimension X where he was founder and CEO.
He has advised and been a board member at several companies including Facebook, Dimension X, Keen, Cloudmark, IMMI and REAL Kiteboarding. Jacob holds a B.S. in Computer Science from University of Southern California where he sits on the school's board of counselors for the School of Engineering.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
September 2005 — Present (2 years 11 months)
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)
May 2002 — March 2005 (2 years 11 months)
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)
September 1999 — May 2002 (2 years 9 months)
(Partnership; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
June 1999 — September 1999 (4 months)
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; MSFT; Internet industry)
May 1997 — June 1999 (2 years 2 months)
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
November 1995 — May 1997 (1 year 7 months)
(Public Company; Internet industry)
1991 — 1993 (2 years)