Flexport founder Ryan Petersen has joined enterprise capital agency Founders Fund as a companion, as reported by Forbes earlier at the moment.
Founders Fund confirmed the transfer to TechCrunch, offering the next assertion from Basic Accomplice Trae Stephens: “We’ve at all times struggled to outline the quintessential Founders Fund founder. Clearly, it’s Ryan. We’re thrilled to welcome him to the staff.”
Petersen — who stepped down as CEO of Flexport final August — himself acknowledged the transfer on Twitter, with a tweet saying:
I’ve joined Founders Fund. If you’re somebody who’s out to get revenge after having been wronged by a earlier employer or investor, a French technical founder who fled socialism to construct your organization in America, or a Christ-like determine of any sort, please get in contact.
Petersen based Flexport, a logistics startup that raised $2.4 billion in funding since its 2013 inception, based on Crunchbase. Founders Fund was an early investor within the firm, which final raised in February of 2022 — a $935 million Collection E co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and MSD Companions that valued the corporate at $8 billion. Founders Fund participated in that spherical as nicely.
The brand new function gained’t be an enormous leap for Petersen contemplating that through the years, he has backed as an angel investor over 50 startups, equivalent to Teleport, Repool and building tech startup Pulley, based on Crunchbase. He might be based mostly in San Francisco.
Over time, Flexport was hailed for having the ability to develop so efficiently regardless of working in a decidedly unsexy business. TechCrunch former reporter Josh Constine wrote this characteristic about how Petersen and the corporate have been stepping up within the battle in opposition to COVID. Utilizing freight software program it constructed, the full-service air, rail truck and ocean freight forwarder doubled income to $3.3 billion in 2021, shifting virtually $19 billion in gross merchandise via its platform. And Petersen informed the American Journal of Transportation in March that Flexport’s estimated 2022 income was $5 billion.
Final month, TechCrunch reported on Kaitlyn Glancy, who had spent greater than eight years with Flexport — the final 4 of them because the outfit’s vp of North America — asserting that she had joined the world of VC because the latest companion on the enterprise agency Eclipse.
Apparently, Founders Fund additionally final September reported that fintech startup Brex’s former chief income officer, Sam Blond, was turning into a companion at Founders Fund.
