Fabrice

Fabrice Grinda (born 3 August 1974) is a French entrepreneur and investor who co-founded the venture-capital firm FJ Labs and serves as a founding partner. Grinda is the co-founder and former CEO of Aucland, Zingy, and OLX and is a frequent conference speaker on trends in technology, emerging markets, and investing.

Studies

Grinda was born in Boulogne Billancourt in France and grew up in Nice, where he graduated high school C Massena in 1992.

Entrepreneurial activities

While at Princeton, Grinda created Princeton International Computers, exporting high-end computer equipment from the U.S. to Europe. In July 1999, in exchange for 51% of the company, Grinda raised $18 million for Aucland from the venture fund of luxury-goods magnate Bernard Arnault. In 2000, he sold the rest of the company to Arnault's fund.

Zingy

In 2000, he returned to the United States where he founded Zingy, a mobile media start-up which he grew to $200 million in revenue. In, 2004, Grinda sold Zingy for $80 million to Japanese media conglomerate For-Side. He remained CEO until 2005.

OLX

In 2006, Grinda and Alec Oxenford co-founded OLX with the goal of becoming the largest free classified advertising website in the world. In 2010, the site was acquired by the South African group Naspers, with Grinda remaining CEO until 2013. While he was still CEO, OLX was in more than 90 countries, in 50 languages, with over 150 million unique visitors per month. His most recent investments are focused on marketplaces connecting buyers to sellers, such as Beepi, a used car marketplace, and Lofty, a marketplace for works of art.

Among Grinda's investments are:

Adore Me Airbnb Alibaba Group Betterment BlaBlaCar Boxed BrightRoll Delivery Hero Dropbox FanDuel Getaround Havenly Home61 Lending Club OKtogo.ru Palantir Technologies PeoplePerHour Pond5 Porch (company) viagogo Fundly Parking Panda Printi Roomorama Sunrise Calendar Ticketbis Thuzio Uber Viagogo Wikimart Properly Mealco Mundi Seafair Umamicart

In 2016, Ticketbis sold for $165 million to eBay. Grinda founded FJ Labs, an investment fund, which also employs 30 programmers in the Dominican Republic.

Business blogger and speaker

Grinda's blog, "Musings of an Entrepreneur", is also carried by Business Insider. and SIME.

He hosts a regular 'ask me anything' from different locations, where he talks about private equity and allows users to literally ask him anything, and he responds in detail. He calls this "Playing with Unicorns".

Awards

On 5 December 2014 Grinda received the Golden Pillar, awarded annually from the French Institute Alliance Française for outstanding contributions to Franco-American relations.

Philanthropy Grinda funds the education of 600 children in the Dominican Republic through the Dream Project.

Personal life Grinda is not married. A 2015 profile in The New York Times reported that in 2012, in a move he called "the very big downgrade", intended to allow him more time to spend with friends and family, Grinda sold his 20-acre New York estate, his Manhattan apartment and his car, and donated his other possessions to charity, except for a carry-on suitcase with 50 items. For the next three years, he lived without a permanent residence or other possessions, at first staying with friends and family, and eventually, after friends complained, in hotels and Airbnb rentals.

He has two children.