Venture Capitalist at Charles River Ventures
San Francisco Bay Area
- Current
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- Venture Capitalist at Charles River Ventures
- Co-Founder at Carebadges.com (Acquired - Facebook Causes)
- Co-Founder at BrightRoll (Formerly Postroller)
- Advisor/Angel Investor at Flixster, RockYou, Admob, Xobni, Voicestar, Frengo and others...
- Past
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- Vice President, Customer Acquisition at Adteractive
- Entrepreneur at $34 million private equity transaction
- Venture Associate at Lehman Venture Capital
- Technology Analyst at Lehman Brothers
- Education
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- Stanford Graduate School of Business
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Recommended
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3 people have recommended Saar - Connections
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500+
connections
- Industry
- Internet
Saar Gur’s Summary
I love helping entrepreneurs build great companies. I have been helping entrepreneurs for as long as I can remember...
The more professional bio:
Saar Gur is a partner at Charles River Ventures (CRV), with 12+ years of experience working with entrepreneurs as a founder, investor and advisor. Saar is passionate about discovering and growing early-stage companies and focuses on CRV’s consumer and internet investments. Saar currently sits on the boards of Progress Financial, Wonderhill, and Blippy (incubated at CRV). Saar was also involved with CRV’s investments in Twitter, Scribd and LilGreenPatch (acquired by Playdom).
Prior to joining CRV, Saar was a co-founder of Brightroll, the world's leading Internet video advertising network. He also acted as an angel investor and advisor to numerous companies including RockYou, Admob (acquired by Google, NASDAQ: GOOG), Flixster, Xobni, and Voicestar (acquired by Marchex, NASDAQ: MCHX). Saar was also the co-founder of Carebadges.com (acquired by Facebook Causes) and remains an active advisor to Causes. Previously, Saar was VP of Customer Acquisition, and responsible for the P&L of Adteractive, a leading performance-based marketing company with over $120m in revenues achieved with no outside capital.
Most recently, Saar launched FounderDating, an endeavor aimed at helping talented entrepreneurs find co-founders and compelling business ideas. Saar has an M.B.A. from Stanford University and a biochemistry degree from University of Wisconsin-Madison. When Saar is not working with tech entrepreneurs, he loves kitesurfing, helping his wife with her offline food business, and spending time with his newborn son.
Saar Gur’s Specialties:
Building companies from great ideas. "Willing" things to success. Working myself out of a job, sales, managing people, attacking complicated problems, not taking myself too seriously.
Saar Gur’s Experience
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Venture Capitalist
Charles River Ventures
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
March 2007 — Present (3 years )
I am focused on working with entrepreneurs to build great companies.
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Co-Founder
Carebadges.com (Acquired - Facebook Causes)
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
July 2006 — Present (3 years 8 months)
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Co-Founder
BrightRoll (Formerly Postroller)
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
January 2006 — Present (4 years 2 months)
Helped found Postroller and get it off the ground. Postroller is the leading video ad network for video on the web.
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Advisor/Angel Investor
Flixster, RockYou, Admob, Xobni, Voicestar, Frengo and others...
(Internet industry)
January 2006 — Present (4 years 2 months)
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Vice President, Customer Acquisition
Adteractive
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)
July 2004 — August 2006 (2 years 2 months)
• Joined Adteractive in its very “early days” to help scale the company. I have been a part of the management team that has helped grow the company to over 150 outstanding employees and $120 mm in revenues (2004 revenues are publicly disclosed in the SF Fastest Growing Company Awards). Exec responsibilities involve product, technology, and organizational development and strategy, and lot's of execution.
• One of the three operating vice presidents accountable for the company P&L (over $120mm).
• Oversee over $10mm in media spend per month across paid-search, CPM/Display, affiliate/performance, and other online media channels.
• Directly responsible for 25+ employees including sales, business development, paid-search media buying, and CPM/display media buying.
• Responsible for the acquisition of two companies and a few major advertiser relationships.
• Champion for the business internally and with outside partners. -
Entrepreneur
$34 million private equity transaction
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
July 2003 — August 2004 (1 year 2 months)
Raised approximately $12mm of equity capital with my business partner to acquire assets that we estimated would sell for $36mm within 3 years of purchase. We ended up selling the assets in less than 2 years for $34mm in cash (October 2005). The story is worthy of a movie...
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Venture Associate
Lehman Venture Capital
(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
January 1999 — May 2001 (2 years 5 months)
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Technology Analyst
Lehman Brothers
(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Investment Banking industry)
May 1997 — January 1999 (1 year 9 months)
Saar Gur’s Education
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Stanford Graduate School of Business
MBA , September 2001 — June 2003
- Activities and Societies:
- President of the GSB Entrepreneur Club (e-club)
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University of Wisconsin-Madison
BS , Biochemistry and Molecular Biology , 1994 — 1998
- Activities and Societies:
- Graduated in 3 years with a 4.0. Yes, I'm a nerd.
Additional Information
Saar Gur’s Groups:
Angel investor and advisor to a few early-stage internet-related companies.
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Exteractive (Adteractive Alumni Group) -
Online Lead Generation -
Game Payments
Saar Gur’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
