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Daniel Hoffer is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist, known for his role as Co-Founder and previous Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the hospitality exchange service, CouchSurfing. Presently, Hoffer serves as Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Deep Venture Partners which is an early stage venture capital fund, and immediately prior to that role worked as Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at technology startup Hayden AI, a Series C stage startup backed by TPG.

Background

Daniel Hoffer was raised in Brookline and started his first dot-com company at age 15. Since 1990 he has been actively involved in various Internet-related communities and businesses . While in high school, Hoffer managed an online Bulletin Board System and an educational program designed to connect physically-challenged individuals with their peers in a digital environment.

Hoffer earned an A.B. degree in Philosophy from Harvard University and an MBA from Columbia University.

Career

Hoffer co-founded Fuxito Worldwide, a venture-backed soccer website, where he hired Casey Fenton and Sebastien Letuan in 1999. Representing the company, he was featured on the cover of Inc. Magazine in January 2000.

Hoffer's professional experience includes roles as a strategist at NEC Corporation, in sales at Siebel Systems, and in product management at Symantec. He later served at Concur (prior to its acquisition by SAP for $8.3B) as Head of Product for TripIt (and its associated product lines) and Head of Product for ExpenseIt.

CouchSurfing

CouchSurfing was co-founded by Hoffer, Sebastian Letuan, and Casey Fenton. The company was initially registered as a non-profit in 2003. Hoffer served as CouchSurfing's Chief Operating Officer during its non-profit phase, as well as Chairman of the Board.

In 2010, after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) denied CouchSurfing's application for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, Hoffer assumed the role of CEO. He subsequently joined Benchmark Capital as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and transitioned CouchSurfing into a for-profit certified B corporation.

In 2011, under Hoffer's leadership, CouchSurfing raised $7.6 million in Series A venture capital funding, led by Benchmark Capital with participation from Point Nine Capital, Gil Penchina, Michael Birch, and others. Subsequently in 2012 CouchSurfing raised a $15 million Series B financing round from General Catalyst, Menlo Ventures, Benchmark Capital and other investors.

Other Ventures

In 2015, Hoffer became a Partner at Tandem Capital, a seed venture capital fund based in Silicon Valley. Later, in 2018, he was appointed as a part-time General Partner at Speedinvest, an Austrian venture capital fund.

After Tandem Capital, Hoffer joined Autotech Ventures as a Managing Director, where he was involved in the company's investments in SWVL, a private transit start-up with headquarters in Dubai and Cairo that later went public on Nasdaq; BusUp, a shuttle platform in Barcelona; and Bus.com, a charter bus service in Montreal. These ventures in the bus industry, along with his subsequent senior executive role at Autotech Ventures portfolio company Hayden AI, have led to Hoffer being nicknamed "The Bus King." Hoffer left Autotech Ventures in July 2023 to join on a full-time basis Hayden AI, an Autotech Ventures portfolio company with whom he had worked closely.

Hoffer has made early stage angel investments in many high profile startups including Beanworks (acquired by Quadient), Branch, Firefly, Fishbowl (acquired by Glassdoor), Grove Collaborative (NYSE: GROV), Hayden AI, LoungeBuddy (acquired by American Express), Outdoorsy, and Trucklabs (acquired by Conmet). In 2017, Hoffer participated as an angel investor in the $30 million funding round for SpotHero, an online parking marketplace. In 2020, he was also involved in the $10 million funding round for Preply, an online learning platform.

Hoffer has shared his expertise as a guest lecturer at institutions such as Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Kellogg School of Management, Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Personal life

Hoffer has contributed articles to Forbes and TechCrunch. In his leisure time, he is a licensed martial arts instructor. Hoffer currently resides in Menlo Park, California.

Board roles

• BusUp (Director)
• Citian (Director)
• CouchSurfing International (Director)
• Drover (acquired by Cazoo) (Director)
• Klearnow.ai (Observer)
• Marti (IPO) (Observer)
• Masonhub (Director)
• Mundimoto (Director)
• Pickup (acquired by PointPickup) (Observer)
• SWVL (IPO) (Observer)
• TripLingo (acquired by Travel and Transport) (Director)
• Trucklabs (acquired by ConMet) (Director)

References

1. ^ Bergman, Ben (2021-12-23). "A VC known as 'the Bus King' explains how he found an undiscovered industry and made a lot of money". businessinsider.com. Insider. Archived from the original on 2021-12-23 – via archive.today.
2. ^ Green, Penelope (2007-09-20). "Surfing the World Wide Couch". The New York Times.
3. Fedorov, Andrew (2021-09-15). "Paradise lost: The rise and ruin of Couchsurfing.com". inverse.com. Input.
4. ^ "Daniel Hoffer joins Hayden AI as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development". www.businesswire.com. 28 September 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
5. ^ Latimore, Ashton. "Couch Agent". www.harvardmagazine.com. No. November–December 2007. Harvard Magazine.
6. ^ Zittrain, Jonathan (2009-04-08). "CouchSurfing: What one website reveals about the future of the net". cyberharvard.edu. Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
7. ^ Taylor, Kate (2015-04-29). "This Mobile Seed Fund Just Added Two More Partners". entrepreneur.com.
8. "Concur Technologies, Inc. : TripIt Introduces an Easier Way to Communicate Travel Plans On the Go, By Making Specific Trip Plans and Flight Status Alerts Shareable | MarketScreener". www.marketscreener.com. 2014-01-06.
9. ^ Moran, Gwen. "How CouchSurfing Got its Start, and Landed VC Millions". NBC News. Archived from the original on January 22, 2021.
10. Baedeker, Rob (2010-06-21). "Building community, one couch at a time". SFGATE.
11. Lapowsky, Issie (2012-05-29). "Couchsurfing Dilemma: Going for Profit". inc.com. Archived from the original on 2013-06-29 – via archive.today.
12. ^ "Dan Hoffer | Managing Director – Autotech Ventures". Forbes Councils.
13. Lacy, Sarah (2011-08-05). "CouchSurfing Raises $7.6 M; Will Users Cry "Sell Out"?". techcrunch.com.
14. Ohr, Thomas (2018-01-31). "Speedinvest launches new €50 million fund "Speedinvest x" to invest in European marketplace technologies". eu-startups.com.
15. "SWVL debuts on Nasdaq, sets initial offer price at $9.95 per share". Wamda. 2022-03-31.
16. Czikk, Joseph (2019-06-27). "Bus.com raises $19.5 million, will hire lots of people". montrealintechnology.com.
17. Vartabedian, Marc (2019-09-26). "Autotech Ventures Navigates Quickly Evolving Transportation Sector". wsj.com. The Wall Street Journal.
18. "SpotHero Secures $30 Million to Accelerate Market Expansion, Business Partnerships and Product Innovation". www.businesswire.com. 2017-07-18.
19. "Preply Raises $10 million as Online Language Learning Comes Into Its Own". markets.businessinsider.com. 2020-03-30.
20. Hoffer, Dan (2023-02-07). "Council Post: Rightsizing The Capital Runway For Takeoff". Forbes.
21. Hoffer, Daniel (2022-09-28). "The unbearable lightness of being asset-light". TechCrunch.

External links

• Forbes Council Profile

• Harvard University alumni
• Columbia University alumni
• American businesspeople
• Businesspeople from Brookline, Massachusetts
• American venture capitalists
• Living people