Justin Waldron

Justin Waldron is an American internet entrepreneur known as the co-founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company, and Zynga.org, a non-profit organization to promote and facilitate the use of social games for philanthropic initiatives. In 2020 Waldron co-founded Playco, a mobile instant game company backed by Sequoia Capital, where he currently serves as president.

Zynga is considered to be the pioneer of the social games industry. In 2011, Zynga held a $1 billion IPO and as of 2021 is the largest mobile gaming company by market share. Waldron is an angel investor in more than 50 technology companies and was named as one of the top 100 seed investors by Business Insider in 2021.

Zynga's most popular games include: FarmVille, CityVille, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, Words with Friends, and CSR Racing 2.

Early life and background Waldron was born and raised in Watertown, Connecticut. He began programming his first video games and websites at 11 years old, shortly after receiving his first computer. His early software projects included hacking AOL, Waldron also reverse engineered the disassembled MIPS machine code of PlayStation 2 games in his spare time to add his own features.

Career

Zynga

In 2007, Justin dropped out of The University of Connecticut and co-founded Zynga at 19 years old. He created Zynga's first title, Zynga Poker in 2007. In 2008, Waldron led the game studio behind YoVille and later led product strategy across Zynga's studios. Waldron also worked on special projects with Zynga's other founders. He lived in Tokyo during Zynga's expansion to Japan. Waldron served as the SVP of Product at Zynga until 2013.

Playco In 2020, it was announced that Waldron had co-founded Playco, which has received over $100 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and others.

Web3 / Blockchain Waldron is active in the Web3 and broader blockchain ecosystem. In 2017, Waldron invested in the first blockchain focused hedge fund, Polychain Capital. In 2018, Waldron became an advisor to Dapper Labs, the creators of CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot. Waldron also advises Immutable X, the first gas-free NFT platform on Ethereum. Waldron has advised Decentraland since 2018.

Investing Waldron has made early-stage investments, advised, or served on the board of directors for companies such as Substack, Lambda School, Kik Messenger, Asia Innovations Group, Snappr, and over 50 others. Zynga.org has since raised more than $20 million for more than 50 international nonprofits by occasionally selling virtual goods for charitable causes.

On March 11, 2011, Zynga announced that 100 percent of the proceeds from the purchase of virtual goods from more than seven of its games would go toward Japan's Save the Children Earthquake Emergency Fund. During the 2012 holiday season, Zynga.org partnered with Toys for Tots in its largest charitable campaign not related to disaster relief. The campaign raised $745,000, with 100 percent of the purchase price of certain virtual goods going to Toys for Tots.

Government Waldron is a special advisor to the Shibuya city government in Tokyo, Japan. His focus is helping to grow the startup ecosystem in Japan.