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Jeff Fluhr
Partner at Craft Ventures
Background and Early Career
Jeff Fluhr is an American business executive and entrepreneur who co-founded StubHub, an online ticket marketplace, and currently serves as a general partner at Craft Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm.
Fluhr was born into a business-oriented family. His grandfather owned a women's clothing store in Manhattan which he passed on to Fluhr's mother. As a child, Fluhr bought candy in large boxes from a wholesale distributor and resold it. He graduated with a dual degree in engineering and finance from the University of Pennsylvania and won the Joseph Wharton Award for Young Leadership. After college, he worked at the Blackstone Group in New York and Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco.13
Co-Founding StubHub
While at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Fluhr entered the annual business plan competition with the idea of creating a trusted and transparent marketplace where fans could buy and sell tickets for sporting events and concerts. He dropped out of school and co-founded StubHub in March 2000. By 2007, StubHub had over 400 employees, more than $600 million in gross merchandise volume, and partnerships with many professional and college sports teams. Fluhr served as CEO of StubHub until it was acquired by eBay for $310 million in 2007.123
Investing at Craft Ventures
After the acquisition, Fluhr launched Spreecast, a social video platform, which ceased operations in 2016. He is currently a general partner at Craft Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. At Craft, Fluhr invests in marketplace business models as well as other transaction-fee business models such as payments businesses and e-commerce enablement companies. He has invested in several unicorns including CourseHero, Houzz, MDLive, Route, Trulia, Twilio, Warby Parker, and ZocDoc.134
Fluhr has been the recipient of several awards including the Sports Business Journal's Forty Under 40, San Francisco Business Times' Forty Under 40, and Entrepreneur Magazine's 24 Best and Brightest Young Entrepreneurs.15
