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Founding Partner at TenOneTen Ventures
Gil Elbaz is a highly successful serial entrepreneur and a Founding Partner at TenOneTen Ventures. He is best known for co-founding Applied Semantics, which became Google AdSense, and founding Factual, a leading location data company acquired by Foursquare.
As a Founding Partner at TenOneTen Ventures, Gil Elbaz primarily invests in early-stage technology companies. His focus areas include B2B software, data infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, particularly companies leveraging data to solve complex business problems.
Gil Elbaz works as a Founding Partner at TenOneTen Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Los Angeles, California.
Gil Elbaz is the Co-Chairman of Foursquare and a Managing Partner at TenOneTen Ventures, based in Los Angeles, California. After earning a bachelor's degree from Caltech, he co-founded Applied Semantics, which developed the core technology behind AdSense and was acquired by Google for $102 million in 2003. He subsequently served as a Director of Engineering at Google until 2007, when he departed to establish the location data company Factual. Factual secured over $100 million in venture funding before merging with Foursquare in 2020 to create a combined entity generating $150 million in revenue. Additionally, he established the Common Crawl Foundation to provide petabyte-scale web datasets utilized by major artificial intelligence projects. Elbaz currently focuses on early-stage venture capital investments across data infrastructure, machine learning, and enterprise software through his $50 million third fund.
Gil Elbaz stands as a prominent figure in the venture capital landscape, serving as a Founding Partner at TenOneTen Ventures. Based in Los Angeles, TenOneTen Ventures is an early-stage firm known for backing innovative technology companies, particularly those leveraging data and artificial intelligence to solve complex business challenges. Elbaz's role involves identifying and nurturing promising startups, providing strategic guidance, and leveraging his extensive entrepreneurial experience to help portfolio companies scale.
Elbaz's career background is marked by significant entrepreneurial success. He is widely recognized as the co-founder of Applied Semantics, a company that developed contextual advertising technology. This groundbreaking technology was acquired by Google in 2003 and subsequently became the foundation for Google AdSense, a cornerstone of Google's advertising empire. Following this success, Elbaz founded Factual in 2007, a leading location data company that provided high-quality, global data for businesses. Factual was later acquired by Foursquare in 2020, further cementing Elbaz's reputation as a visionary in the data and technology sectors.
At TenOneTen Ventures, Gil Elbaz's investment focus areas align closely with his expertise: B2B software, data infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. He is particularly interested in companies that possess strong data moats, utilize advanced analytics, and develop solutions that drive efficiency and innovation for enterprises. His operational background gives him a unique perspective, enabling him to deeply understand the challenges and opportunities faced by early-stage technology companies. This hands-on approach is invaluable to the founders he supports.
TenOneTen Ventures, under Elbaz's leadership, has built a diverse portfolio of impactful companies. While specific individual investments by Gil Elbaz are often made through the fund, the firm's notable investments include companies like Honey (acquired by PayPal), Scopely (acquired by Savvy Games Group), ServiceTitan, and FloQast, among others. These investments reflect a commitment to backing founders who are building category-defining businesses with robust technology and clear market potential. Gil Elbaz continues to be a driving force in the Los Angeles tech ecosystem and beyond, shaping the future of enterprise technology through his strategic investments and mentorship.