Welcome, A little about me…
Hi welcome to my Blog
Hi my name is Rob Frasca and welcome to my blog. I’m a serial entrepreneur and now venture capitalist. In 1994 when I was studying at Carnegie Mellon University I saw the Internet emerge and decided to start company with a classmate Joel Maske, we created the first financial service on the Internet, it was a very exciting time. Joel and I worked together to create the first stock quote server and portfolio manager on the Internet and we later sold the company to Intuit where our NetWorth service became Quicken Financial Network. I was just 29 Years old.
After working with Bill Campbell, Scott Cook and Bill Harris at Intuit, I learned a great deal about working at one of Silcon Valley top tech firms. But, I decided to throw my hat back into the entrepreneurial ring, and joined Ken Lang a PhD student at CMU studying machine learning and artificial intelligence. We created a company, WiseWire that utilized machine learning to provide content filtering and advertising targeting, where we ultimately sold the company to Lycos in 1996.
It was a pleasure to work with Ken Lang a true Polymath who today holds more than 40 patents, to pioneer some of the earliest AI and machine learning applications on the internet. Ken and I remained friends and today Ken is one of my Partners at COSIMO Ventures and CTO. (more on that later).
I became the VP and General Manager of Lycos.com at Lycos, inc. reporting to the CEO Bob Davis. Ken Lang became the CTO of Lycos. We soon worked hard and Lycos soon became the #2 search engine in the world behind Yahoo and was ultimately sold to Telefonica for over $5 Billion.
After the sale I decided to start an Internet incubator called Internet Venture Works, with investment from many of the top Private Equity — LBO firms in America. Soon afterwards the dot com bubble popped. I soon learned how to operate a company through tough times and turbulent waters. I ultimately decided to take the high ground to shut my incubator down and return the capital I raised back to my investors as the premise for my newly founded company quickly disappeared.
After some time, recharging my batteries and contemplating my passions I joined a very exciting start-up Affinnova as the CEO. This company used Genetic Algorithms to model consumer preferences. My little company with seven people soon became a company with more than 40 employees selling software to many of The Fortune 500 consumer product companies. Companies such as Procter& Gamble, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Unilever. The company was ultimately sold to Nielsen.
Since Affinnova I have had the privilege to expand my career in many capacities, from COO of a virtual world, to the CEO of a company doing virtual goods. From being the CPO of a world class Voice Over IP company for video games ultimately sold to Unity to finally starting my own Venture Capital Firm COSIMO Ventures with my partner Ciaran Hynes.
Throughout my 25 Year career as a entrepreneur with 6 exits and 1 failure I have learned a great deal about leadership, finance, sales and building successful companies. I have learned what it feels like to sign the front of a paycheck, and I know how it feels to miss a payroll. As an Investor in early stage companies I bring these experiences with me to help my team and I spot and cultivate promising investment opportunities.
Most importantly, I respect and hold the entrepreneur in the highest regard, and I hope I can share many of my lessons learned through my journey with you here.
-Rob
