Hooman Radfar

Hooman Radfar
Hooman at the Access Conference
Hooman Radfar at the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference
Born July 14, 1980
London, England,
Residence San Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupation Entrepreneur

Hooman Radfar (born July 14, 1980, London, England) is an American technology entrepreneur. He is a partner at Expa, a San Francisco based start-up studio. Previously he was co-founder and CEO of AddThis.[1][2][3] AddThis provides the most widely used social media tools and analytics platform for web site creators. According to web measurement firm ComScore, in 2013 the platform reached over 97% of users in the United States and 1.6 billion users world-wide.[4]

Early life and education

At the time of the Iranian Revolution, his family immigrated to England in 1979. Radfar was born in London in 1980. Nearly a year later the family moved to the United States where he was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Radfar graduated from Upper St. Clair High School in 1998. In 2002, he graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in Computer Science and Economics. In 2004, he earned his M.S. in Information Networking from the Information Networking Institute at Carnegie Mellon University where he researched social networking.[5]

Career

In 2004, Radfar and Austin Fath founded Clearspring Technologies to create developer platforms based on their research in web services and social networking at Carnegie Mellon.[6] Clearspring launched the first content sharing and tracking service for web publishers in 2006.[7] The company acquired AddThis in 2008[8] and XGraph in 2011.[9] Renamed AddThis in 2012,[10] the company provides the largest content engagement platform on the web, reaching 1.7B users monthly across a network of 13M publishers.[11]

Other Company Involvement

In 2013, Radfar founded 10e9 an early stage investment and advisory company. As director of 10e9, he has invested in, or advised, companies like Uber, Hyperloop, Hinge, Washio,[12] SpoonRocket, Sweetgreen.[13] and more.

Awards & Recognition

He was named one of Tech's Best Entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek alongside Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.[14] He is also a Top 25 Marketing Leader and Innovator Online according to iMedia Publications.[15] He was a commencement speaker at Carnegie Mellon’s Information Networking Institute [16] and a Whiting Turner Lecturer at the University of Maryland.[17]

Personal life

Hooman currently lives in San Francisco. His brother, Cyrus Radfar, is a San Francisco entrepreneur and founder of Kapuno.

References

  1. ↑ AddThis founder Hooman Radfar moves west - Washington Business Journal
  2. ↑ DC Tech: Silicon Valley Poaches AddThis Chairman Hooman Radfar | InTheCapital
  3. ↑ ClearSpring Sees What 1/2 The Internet is Doing (API Coming Soon) – ReadWrite
  4. ↑ Otlacan, Otilla (November 25, 2013). "comScore Ranks AddThis #1 in Distributed Content in the United States". Ad Ops Online. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  5. ↑ "LinkedIn Public Profile".
  6. ↑ Shropshire, Corilyn (June 6, 2007). "Clearspring's 'widget' deal may help boost NBC". Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  7. ↑ Cashmore, Pete (November 6, 2006). "Clearspring to Track Widgets Across Netvibes, Myspace, and More". Mashable. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  8. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (September 30, 2008). "Widget Platform Clearspring Acquires AddThis". ReadWrite. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  9. ↑ Swisher, Kara (November 1, 2011). "Clearspring Buys Data Science Start-Up XGraph.". AllThingsD. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  10. ↑ Shontell, Alyson (May 10, 2012). "Social Data Company Clearspring Changes Its Name To AddThis And Now Reaches 1.3 Billion Monthly Uniques". BusinessInsider. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  11. ↑ "AddThis is the largest social infrastructure and data platform". Company About page. AddThis. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  12. ↑ "Angel.co - Investors". Angel.co. March 8, 2013. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  13. ↑ "Angel.co - Investors". Angel.co. December 3, 2013. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  14. ↑ "Tech's Best Entrepreneurs". BusinessWeek. March 26, 2007. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  15. ↑ "iMedia 25 - 2009 Internet Marketing Leaders and Innovators". iMedia. 2009. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  16. ↑ "Entrepreneur to Speak at INI Diploma Ceremony". Carnegie Mellon University - Information Networking Institute. March 1, 2011. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  17. ↑ "The Business of Social Media - A Whiting-Turner Lecture". News and Events - A. James Clark School of Engineering. April 2, 2009. Retrieved December 14, 2013.