In our weekly tech mafia series we cover the biggest tech mafias in Silicon Valley and beyond, taking a closer look at what companies former employees have started, how much money they’ve raised, and who their investors are.
What is a tech mafia group?
Disruptive startups like PayPal have produced a line of ex employees who go on to start their own influential startups. For example, employees who worked at PayPal went on to found companies like LinkedIn and YouTube.
The Etsy Mafia
Etsy was founded in 2005 in New York City by Rob Kalin and partners Chris Maguire and Haim Schoppik. It went public in 2015, and it's still going strong!
Quick stats on the Etsy Mafia:
We've selected 20 of the top most notable companies, followed by 7 rising stars of the Etsy Mafia. Learn about their investor details, money raised, and more below!
Founder: Isaac Oates
Etsy Role: VP, Special Projects
Capital Raised: $143M
Investors: Union Square Ventures
Stage: Series E
Justworks provides small and medium-sized businesses with simple software and expert support for payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance.
Founder: Stefan Karpinski
Etsy Role: Engineer
Capital Raised: $42.8M
Investors: General Catalyst
Stage: Series A
JuliaHub is a single platform for modeling, simulation, and user built applications.
Founder: Jason Davis
Etsy Role: Director of Search & Data, Staff Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $61.8M
Investors: BoxGroup
Stage: Series C
Simon Data delivers out-of-the box results of any customer data platform.
Founder: Andrew Peterson, Nick Galbreath, Zane Lackey
Etsy Role: Group PM/GM, Director of Engineering, Advisor
Capital Raised: $61.7M
Investors: CRV
Stage: Series C
Signal Sciences is a software as a service platform providing security monitoring and defense for web applications.
Founder: Jason Laster
Etsy Role: Senior Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $21.8M
Investors: Peter Levine
Stage: Seed
Replay is a browser that records all of the context you need to fix bugs faster.
Founder: Evan Wolf
Etsy Role: Software Engineer II (iOS)
Capital Raised: $12M
Investors: Woodland Capital
Stage: Seed
Monument is a software platform for the self-storage industry that manages large portfolios of facilities.
Founder: David Giffin
Etsy Role: Software Engineer Search
Capital Raised: $22.9M
Investors: CRV
Stage: Series A
Release simplifies development by making the creation of environments easy.
Founder: Sara Hicks
Etsy Role: Vice President, Product Management
Capital Raised: $11.2M
Investors: BBG Ventures
Stage: Series A
Reaction Commerce is an open and real-time commerce platform for modern retailers.
Founder: Abe Stanway
Etsy Role: Data Engineer
Capital Raised: $11.3M
Investors: Blackhorn Ventures
Stage: Series A
Amperon is a provider of smart meters to deliver real-time energy data forecasts.
Founder: Aaron Henshaw, Joe Lallouz
Etsy Role: Senior Engineering Manager, Product Management
Capital Raised: $30.8M
Investors: Collaborative Fund
Stage: Series A
Bison Trails allows the user to run secure infrastructure on multiple blockchains.
Founder: Samer Atiani
Etsy Role: Senior Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $31.6M
Investors: Silicon Badia
Stage: Series B
Liwwa is a peer-to-peer lending network that connects investors and small businesses through smart business loans.
Founder: Dev Tandon
Etsy Role: Founder / Etsy Wholesale
Capital Raised: $7.3M
Investors: Floodgate
Stage: Series A
Boxbee originally launched its operations in NYC and San Francisco and built a software platform that supported personal storage operations. Iron Mountain merged the storage operations it acquired from Boxbee with Box Butler and Corovan made a comparable move with its consumer-facing brand Brute Box Moving. Today, Boxbee is managed and operated by Corovan and launched operations across major metropolitan areas in the State of California.
Founder: Tim Mason
Etsy Role: Engineering Manager, Mobile Apps
Capital Raised: $6.8M
Investors: First Round Capital
Stage: Series A
Ringly designs and develops wearable technology solutions that are compact in size, but powerful in functionality.
Founder: Zachary Feuerstein
Etsy Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $4M
Investors: Twelve Below, Founder Collective
Stage: Seed
Breadboard is a SaaS company digitizing the electronics manufacturing supply chain.
Founder: Edith Cooper
Etsy Role: Independent Board Director
Capital Raised: $3.7M
Investors: Foundation Capital
Stage: Seed
Medley is a membership for curious, growth-minded people who want a structured, social, and accessible way to invest in themselves.
Founder: Aakash Sabharwal
Etsy Role: Senior Engineering Manager
Capital Raised: $4.2M
Investors: Village Global
Stage: Seed
Lasso makes it easy to discover and create utility for digital assets like NFTs.
Founder: Sean Flannagan
Etsy Role: Senior Product Manager
Capital Raised: $2M
Investors: Bee Partners
Stage: Pre-Seed
UPC is a private enterprise that wholesale exchange using the power of tech, data, and machine learning, to connect retail customers.
Founder: Ramin Bozorgzadeh
Etsy Role: Senior Software Engineer, Mobile & Perf Team
Capital Raised: $5.5M
Investors: Kindred Ventures
Stage: Seed
Carrot is a plug-in that saves the stuff you’ve put in your cart and automatically categorizes it.
Founder: Joshua Halickman
Etsy Role: Engineering Manager of the Mobile Team
Capital Raised: $5.5M
Investors: General Catalyst
Stage: Seed
Abacus is an intuitive way for people to reimburse their team, reconcile corporate cards, and implement expense policy.
Founder: Jeremy Toeman
Etsy Role: VP Product Management
Capital Raised: $1M
Investors: David Beck
Stage: Seed
SaaS product that helps professionals rapidly create compelling visual narratives that convert audiences.
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