Bob Rosin

Bob Rosin is an Investment Partner at Defy.vc. As a founder, serial entrepreneur, and former leadership team member at Stripe, LinkedIn, and Skype, he has experienced all facets of startup life from founding companies, to raising capital, scaling growth, and M&A. He has also led the partnerships function at massive scale for world-class companies. He is excited to partner with and mentor the next generation of founders of category-leading technology businesses. In addition to his work as an entrepreneur and executive, he has been an active angel investor and advisor to companies including Stripe, Workato, Tenor (acquired by Google), Cursor Data (Data Robot), MindMeld (Cisco), Instawork, Tonal Fitness, Accord, TruePlan, Prairie Health, Capchase, and Curated.

“I know how hard it is to build a company from zero and to build a team, create a company culture, evangelize the first customers, create a winning product, and make the thousands of decisions involved in shepherding a company to massive scale.”

His three startups were each pioneers in the development of key technology trends: internet infrastructure, mobile computing, and video communications. At Bang Networks, they developed the first global infrastructure for dynamic content delivery on the Internet. OQO had a radical vision that one day we would all carry an internet-connected computer in their pocket. And Qik was the first breakthrough video calling app on phones. Through these experiences he cut his teeth not only on building companies, but in creating new markets as well.

After Qik was acquired by Skype, he was tasked to lead their business development function which became a platform for him to accelerate user acquisition and revenue growth. After Microsoft’s $8.5B acquisition of Skype, he stayed on as VP & GM and learned to appreciate execution at massive scale.

Next he joined LinkedIn as VP of Business Development and reported to Jeff Weiner as a member of the Product Executive team, where he helped drive growth to hundreds of millions of users, scaling to $7B in SaaS revenue, and managing over one hundred thousand developers participating in their API program. This experience taught him the power of building a mission-oriented culture and of putting members first.

After Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $26.2B, he moved on to join the executive leadership team at Stripe as head of partnerships. While diving deep into the world of payments, managing hypergrowth at Stripe also taught him of the power of building for developers, achieving leverage through partners, and imbuing all activities with deep rigor and quality of thought.

Earlier on, he started his career by living in Japan for five years, where he passed the Level 1 Japanese language proficiency exam and was a columnist for a Japanese national newspaper while working at Sony Corporation. He earned a second degree black belt in Aikido, he was the first author on 10 granted patents, and was winner of the Dubilier Prize for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School. He is a proud father of two daughters, the best prize of all.

Bob Rosin is the Partner at Defy.vc, based in United States, North America. With a background in Financial Services, Bob Rosin has a rich history of leadership and innovation. Explore their detailed professional journey, key connections, and contributions to the industry on our platform.