Paul Bragiel

Paul Bragiel

Paul Bragiel at BDL Accelerate, Beirut, Lebanon, 21 November 2014. Image ©Dan Taylor/Heisenberg Media - http://www.heisenbergmedia.com/
Born (1977-09-15) 15 September 1977
Residence U.S.
Citizenship American, Polish, Colombian
Fields Computer Engineer and Business

Paul Bragiel (born September 15, 1977 in Chicago, Illinois) is an internet entrepreneur and currently a managing partner of Bragiel Brothers[1]

Early life

Bragiel, the oldest child of Mary and Walter Bragiel, was raised in Mt. Prospect & South Barrington, Illinois. In the late 90s, he was involved in the demoscene.[2]

Ventures

Bragiel graduated from University of Illinois in 1999.[3] Shortly after graduating he founded his first company, Paragon 5, with offices in Chicago and Poland. In 2004 he founded the first location-based social network Meetro. In 2008 he founded Lefora[4] which was sold to Crowdgather in the summer of 2010.[5]

In 2010 he launched i/o Ventures, a seed fund and accelerator based in San Francisco. Mentors include founders of companies such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Zynga, Bittorrent, Paypal, Myspace, WordPress, Yelp & Trulia.

In 2012 he launched three more technology-focused seed funds. Savannah Fund (Sub-Saharan Africa) and Golden Gate Ventures (Southeast Asia) were created to foster entrepreneurship in those regions. Gamefounders (Eastern Europe) invests in companies building gaming-related products.

In 2015 he launched Presence Capital, a $10m venture fund investing in early-stage virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) companies.[6]

Collectively he's invested or advised 100+ companies, which have raised $1.5b+ in follow-on financing. Companies include Uber, Zappos and Unity.

Often he travels around the world to give lectures on startups and serves as an advisor to governments on their technology and entrepreneurship policy including the nations of Colombia, Singapore, Estonia and Tanzania. [7]

Olympics

In 2013 Bragiel trained in cross country skiing in Finland with a view to compete in the 2014 Sochi Olympics under the Colombian flag. In order to participate, Paul obtained Colombian citizenship by presidential decree and was soon globally addressed as the man who was hacking his way into the Olympics.[8]

For the 2016 Summer Olympics, Bragiel joined the Tonga delegation as team attaché.[9]

References

  1. ↑ Arrington, Michael. "i/o Ventures – A Work/Cafe Incubator Launches In San Francisco".
  2. ↑ http://foundersweek.fi/paul-bragiel-is-the-startup-ambassador-of-silicon-valley/
  3. ↑ "Paul Bragiel - LinkedIn".
  4. ↑ "Lefora - CrunchBase".
  5. ↑ Arrington, Michael. "Forum Site Lefora Gobbled Up By CrowdGather".
  6. ↑ "New venture capital fund targets VR/AR". USA Today.
  7. ↑ "Meet Silicon Valley's Unofficial Emissary to the Rest of the World".
  8. ↑ i/o Ventures' Paul Bragiel to Train for the Olympics in Lapland: Today We are all #TeamPaul Arctic Startup, 13 Oct. 2013
  9. ↑ Association, Pacific Islands News. "Seven Tongan athletes bound for Rio Olympics".
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