Betfair Founder Joins Matrix Partners

Josh Hannah has joined Matrix Partners as a general partner. He previously was co-founder and CEO of Flutter.com (now Betfair), a London-based developer of the world’s first online marketplace for sports betting.

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

Matrix Partners, a premier venture capital firm with a thirty-year history, today announced a new addition to its Silicon Valley office, located on Sand Hill Rd. in Menlo Park, CA. Josh Hannah, a consumer Internet entrepreneur and investor, will join the firm as general partner.

 

Hannah has launched, turned around and invested in a number of successful Internet companies. Most notably, he was co-founder and chief executive of Flutter.com (now Betfair.com), a London-based company that revolutionized the gaming industry by building the world’s first online marketplace for sports betting. Today privately held Betfair manages more than $50 billion in transactions each year.

 

In his new role at Matrix Partners, Hannah will be investing in innovative young companies across a range of sectors, including Internet, software and other consumer technologies.

 

The move is the firm’s second partner hire in six months, and signals Matrix Partners’ increased commitment to fostering entrepreneurial growth in the Silicon Valley region. Headquartered in Waltham, MA, the firm recruited Dana Stalder, formerly Senior Vice President at PayPal, to its Menlo Park office in August.

 

“Josh and Dana are both exceptionally talented, accomplished, high-energy individuals,” says Matrix Partners Managing Partner Timothy Barrows. “I am confident in Josh and Dana’s abilities to identify the best opportunities and help entrepreneurs build innovative, industry-leading businesses. As a firm we understand the cyclical nature of the economy and have been successful as a result of our long-term approach to venture capital. We remain optimistic about the potential of consumer and enterprise technologies.”

 

“I am thrilled to be joining Matrix Partners. I have profound respect for the firm’s track record of performance as a top-five firm, as well as its reputation among entrepreneurs for being an active, committed, level-headed partner,” says Hannah.

 

“I’ve known Josh for nearly a decade,” says Matrix Partners General Partner Dana Stalder. “He has an uncanny ability to recognize unmet needs in the market as well as identify and solve strategic and tactical business problems. He brings tremendous value to the companies he advises.”

 

In 2004 Hannah and a partner purchased eHow, an online how-to directory. They restructured the business, outsourcing content creation to the community and increased revenue and traffic 30-fold before selling the company to Demand Media in 2006. Hannah is also an angel investor and advisor to Internet entrepreneurs. He serves on the boards of Betfair, Friendster, Minted.com and uShip.

 

Hannah was an Arjay Miller Scholar at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor’s degree in Economics.

 

About Matrix Partners:

 

Matrix Partners is a premier venture capital firm that has generated outstanding returns for over three decades. The firm has delivered several of the industry’s top performing funds of all time. Matrix Partners is headquartered in Waltham, Mass., and has offices in Menlo Park, CA, Mumbai, India and Beijing, China.

 

Matrix Partners is the firm entrepreneurs trust to provide the superior business counsel and operational assistance that gives their venture the very best opportunity to succeed. The firm has been fortunate to be a part of the creation of game-changing, industry-leading businesses such as Aruba Networks (Nasdaq: ARUN), JBoss (Red Hat), Netezza (NYSE: NZ), SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK), Starent Networks (Nasdaq: STAR), Sycamore Networks (Nasdaq: SCMR) and Veritas Software (Symantec).

 

For more information please visit www.matrixpartners.com.