Hey, I'm Upendra!
Seattle WA | Member since September 2016
About Upendra Shardanand
I love taking ideas from inception to reality. These days I divide my time between starting things and consulting with companies to help them start things (Facebook, SYPartners).
Though it all started in 1995, where my graduate research at the MIT Media Lab introduced Collaborative Filtering (“if you like this, you’ll like that”). That led to Firefly Network, an early web pioneer that launched an array of web firsts around personalization, social networking and personal privacy. One of the most-trafficked sites on the web, Firefly was acquired by Microsoft in 1998.
Following Microsoft, I co-founded The Accelerator Group, a VC / incubator based in NYC, LA, and London. The fund developed or funded 15 early-stage businesses including Blogger (acq. by GOOG), Openwave (OPWV), and Insight First (acq. by TFSM).
Thereafter I served as Director of Technology at Time Warner, coordinating the CTO Council, developing product strategies, and evaluating M&A and partnership targets.
Subsequently I co-founded Daylife, a news innovation platform. As CEO I led the company as we served 100s of publishing clients across 6 continents, including the New York Times, Guardian, the Associated Press, Getty Images, and ESPN. Daylife was acquired in 2012.
Most recently I did a stint at Samsung as an entrepreneur-in-residence.
I’ve guest-lectured at NYU and the City University of New York, and judged the MBA Odyssey competition.
I've served as an advisor to a number of companies including Fandistro, StreetEasy (acq by ZG), Help Remedies (acq by Remedies, LLC), Treehugger (acq by DISCA) PeoplePC (acq by ELNK), MediaCode (acq by YHOO), RealNames, BrandKarma and InsightFirst (acq by TFSM).
Issues I care about include social justice, climate change, organizational and personal change, animal welfare, storytelling and journalism.
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