Bio

I am Managing General Partner & founder at SOSV, a venture capital firm with more than $1B in assets under management. SOSV pioneers & runs world-leading startup development programs. We help fund, at the Pre-seed/seed stage, about 125 new startups per year out of the over 8,000 that apply to HAX, IndieBio, Orbit Startups and dlab... We follow-on invest into SOSV-backed companies with investment and marketplace traction. TIMESAVER: SOSV DOES NOT MAKE DIRECT INVESTMENTS into startups that did not get accepted into one of the above SOSV startup development programs. Apply to these SOSV programs at http://SOSV.com/apply. I have worked as an engineer, musician, computer programmer, software designer, marketing guy, sales guy, humanitarian worker, war photographer, cinematographer on music videos, short films & documentaries, stock picker, freelance photojournalist, small business operator, venture capitalist and writer. Co-inventor and popularizer (with my other MapInfo friends) of street mapping on personal computers. I have about 25 granted patents where I am listed as the primary inventor. I am credited with the co-invention (with George Favaloro of Compaq) of the term ''cloud computing''​. Also coined the term ''Protein farming''. Passable in Spanish; pidgeon French & Arabic & Chinese. I was a TV personality in Ireland for a few years, as an investor on the TV reality show ''Dragon's Den'', and founded and ran the humanitarian organization JumpStart International for a couple of years in a couple of war zones. I helped back Coderdojo and Khan Academy in their crucial early years. I'm still on the board of Khan Academy. I'm an organizing member of the Autism Impact Fund and on the social causes side I look to address breakthroughs in autism treatment options, particularly on the physiology of autism. Specialties: helping SOSV-backed founders go further & faster; getting other people interested in things I care about; improving efficiency in processes; creating technology to solve real problems for real human beings. I have office hours for startup founders: Office Hours I make myself available for 15 minute calls for entrepreneurs, you can consider signing up by looking at this URL: http://sean-sosv.youcanbook.me.