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30 Under 30 America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs

Where are They Now?

What happened to the young entrepreneurs who have appeared on our annual 30 Under 30 List in the past? Book deals and big paydays are among the updates.

 

Jamail Larkins, Larkins Enterprises and Ascension Aircraft [1]

Susan Gregg Koger & Eric Koger, ModCloth [2-3]

Adam Rich and Ben Lerer, Thrillist [4-5]

Michael Seibel, Justin Kan, Emmett Shear & Kyle Vogt, Justin.TV [6-9]

Emily Olson, Rob LaFave & Nik Bauman, Foodzie [10-12]

John Goscha, Jeff Avallon & Morgan Newman, IdeaPaint [13-15]

Tristan Harris, Can Sar & Jesse Young, Apture [16-18]

Elliott Bisnow, Summit Series [19]

Danielle Snyder & Jodie Snyder, DANNIJO [20-21]

Pete Cashmore, Mashable [22]

Michael Nardy, Electronic Payments [23]

Josh Shipp Hey Josh [24]

Shawne Frayne Humdinger Wind Energy [25]

Kyle Smitely barley & birch [26]

Anthony Volodkin Hype Machine [27]

Maddie Bradshaw M3 Girl Designs [28]

Peter Smathers Carter & Austin Branson Smathers & Branson [29-30]

2008 ALUMNI

2009 ALUMNI

Aaron Patzer, the founder of Mint.com (2008), sold his company to Intuit for $170 million and has been ensconced as Vice President and General Manager of Intuit Personal Finance Group. But he hasn't forgotten his entrepreneurial roots. He's using that stack of cash from Intuit to make some angel investments of his own, including a stake in Jack Abraham's Milo.com, which is on this year's list. And he's also an informal advisor to Anapata's Ooshma Garg.

When he appeared on the 30 Under 30 list in 2008, Etsy founder Rob Kalin had just hired a professional CEO and given up day-to-day management responsibilities. But last December, Kalin retook the reins. Etsy has thrived since--the company is profitable and has been posting double-digit monthly sales gains. In his spare time, Kalin is working on a second company, Parachutes.org, an online education start-up.

Chaim Indig and Evan Roberts, the founders of Phreesia (2008), closed a $16 million Series D investment from Ascension Health Ventures in May. Phreesia, a self-service patient check-in company that makes electronic tablets for use in doctors' offices, will use the investment to expand its nationwide presence.

Involver founders Rahim Fazal and Noah Horton (2008), have added Facebook, the White House, and Sony Music to their client list. Involver, which helps companies and organizations build their video presence across social networking platforms, now supports more than 80,000 brands.

It's been a big year for Ben Lerer and Adam Rich and their company Thrillist (2009). Early in 2010, Lerer and his father Ken, co-founder of The Huffington Post, launched the New York City-based angel fund Lerer Media Ventures. And in the spring, Thrillist made its first acquisition, expanding into the e-commerce space with the purchase of Jack Threads, a flash-sale site for men's streetwear that works similarly to Gilt.com. With the deal, Thrillist diversifies its business, which was heavily dependent on advertising revenue, while Jack Threads will get its name in front of Thrillist's nearly 2 million e-mail subscribers.  "We have the e-mail list and they have the vendor relationships," Lerer says. "The case we made is that it would be just so much easier for them if they didn't have to worry about building the audience."

Box.net's (2008) Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith grew their company more than 535 percent in 2009 and tripled revenue in the first half of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009.  Box.net allows users to share, store, and access any type of digital file from anywhere at anytime, and now has more than 4 million users, ranging from SMBs to giants like Volvo, Audi and Coca Cola. The company launched one of the first customized business applications for the iPad, developed mobile applications for the iPhone and Blackberry, and also integrated with other mobile productivity applications. Last April, the founders landed $15M in Series C financing, led by Scale Venture Partners, bringing Box.net's total venture funding to $29.5M.  Levie and Smith plan to invest aggressively in R&D and will add a significant number of employees.

Ben Kaufman (2007) sold Mophie in August of 2007 and began developing Kluster, a platform designed for group decision making and measuring influence. It's Kluster that drives Quirky, the social product development company that Kaufman launched in June 2009.  Quirky develops one new product a week and shares the revenue with the influencers who helped develop each product. Since launch, Quirky has collaboratively developed 46 new products, hit threshold on 16 (the trigger that sends a product into production) and raised $6 million dollars in series A financing led by RRE (also an investor in Venmo, on this year's list.)

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