Mitch Lasky

Mitch Lasky is a general partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Benchmark and a former entrepreneur and video game executive.[1]

Mitch Lasky
Born
Los Angeles, California
Alma materHarvard College, University of Virginia School of Law
OccupationVenture Capitalist
EmployerGeneral Partner at Benchmark

Education and early career

Lasky received a B.A. degree in History and Literature from Harvard College and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.[2]

Early in his career, Lasky practiced law at the Los Angeles firm Irell & Manella, where he worked on various technology-related intellectual property cases.[3] In 1993, he joined the Walt Disney Company,[4] where he was part of the initial team that created Disney Interactive Studios.[1] He left Disney in 1994 to launch a massively multiplayer online game company, Serum Entertainment Software.[2]

Lasky subsequently spent five years at video game publisher Activision, including a stint as executive vice president of Worldwide Studios,[5] helping to launch Quake 3, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and Spider-man.

In 2000,[6] he joined mobile games company JAMDAT as CEO[7] and took the company public in 2004.[1] Electronic Arts acquired JAMDAT for $680 million in 2006.[4] Lasky served as executive vice president of mobile and online games at Electronic Arts from 2006 to 2007, after the JAMDAT acquisition.[8]

Benchmark

Lasky joined Benchmark in 2007 as a general partner.[9] He focuses on identifying investment opportunities in mobile, games, digital privacy and identity, and online education.[9] He has led the firm’s investments in and serves on the boards of Snapchat, Ubiquity6,[10] CyanogenMod, Engine Yard, Gaia, Riot Games, PlayFab,[11] Vivox, Grockit, Gaikai, RedRobot, Meteor Entertainment, thatgamecompany, and NaturalMotion.[4][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

In June 2012, VentureBeat asked Lasky about the current state of the gaming industry. Lasky replied:

We have seen disruptions come on a regular basis, like when we have a console transition. But I have never seen four major disruptions come all at the same time. We have disruptions in platforms, business models, content, and distribution. It’s the most exciting time I’ve ever seen.

References
  1. "Mitch Lasky". CrunchBase. TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  2. "Board of Directors". Company. Gaikai. Archived from the original on 2 September 2012. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  3. "Mitchell Lasky J.D." Executive Profile. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 24 August 2012.
  4. Takahashi, Dean (17 July 2012). "Benchmark's Mitch Lasky: Game publishers will evolve or die (interview)". Venture Beat. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  5. "Printable Biography of Mitch Lasky". Biographies. All American Speakers. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  6. "Mitch Lasky". Speaker Bio. Dice Summit. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  7. Elliott, Phil (10 July 2008). "Mitch Lasky speaks out against "state regulation" of videogames". Games Industry International. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  8. Remo, Chris (13 January 2010). "Former EA Exec Lasky: 'EA Is In The Wrong Business'". Gamasutra. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  9. "Lasky steps down at EA, joins VC firm". RCR Wireless. 20 March 2007. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  10. "AR startup Ubiquity6 lands $27M Series B to build a more user-friendly augmented reality". TechCrunch.
  11. Eric, Johnson. "Benchmark Leads $7.4 Million Round in Live Games Platform PlayFab". www.recode.com. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  12. Schonfeld, Erick (11 January 2008). "Benchmark Bets on Ruby on Rails With $3.5 Million Investment in Engine Yard". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  13. Williams, Mike (18 July 2012). "Benchmark's Mitch Lasky: The value of publishers "isn't clear"". Games Industry International. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  14. "Mitch Lasky". VentureBeat Profiles. VentureBeat. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  15. Takahashi, Dean (14 September 2011). "Red Robot Labs raises $8.5M for location-based mobile gaming". VentureBeat. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  16. Gallagher, Billy (8 February 2013). "Snapchat Raises $13.5M Series A Led By Benchmark, Now Sees 60M Snaps Sent Per Day". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  17. Cutler, Kim-Mai (18 September 2013). "Cyanogen Mod Raises $7M To Find A Direct-To-Consumer Route For Android Firmware". TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 September 2013.
  18. "Team". Web site. Cyanogen. Retrieved 27 September 2013.
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