Jeffrey Bussgang

Jeff’s investment interests and entrepreneurial experience are in AI, blockchain, consumer, e-commerce, machine learning, and mobile start-ups. He also serves as a part-time Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and teaches a class on entrepreneurship and lean start-ups called Launching Technology Ventures. In this capacity, he has co-authored over thirty HBS cases, book chapters and teaching notes regarding startup management and entrepreneurship. Jeff also runs The Graduate Syndicate, a micro-seed fund that Flybridge created to invest in startups co-founded by recent Harvard graduates.

Prior to co-founding Flybridge, Jeff co-founded and served as President, Chief Operating Officer, and Board Director at Upromise, a loyalty marketing and financial services firm that was acquired by Sallie Mae. He also served as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Business Development, Vice President of Worldwide Professional Services and head of Product Management at Open Market, an Internet commerce software leader that went public in 1996. Prior to Open Market, Jeff was with the strategy consulting firm, The Boston Consulting Group.

In 2017, Jeff authored a book for startup joiners, Entering StartUpLand: An Essential Guide to Finding the Right Job. In 2010, Jeff authored a book on venture capital and entrepreneurship, Mastering the VC Game, to provide entrepreneurs an insider’s guide to financing and company-building. The book has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, TechCrunch and The Financial Times as an essential guide for entrepreneurs. The first chapter of Mastering the VC Game can be downloaded here.

Jeff is an active community member, serving as co-chairman of the leadership council at educational non-profit, Facing History and Ourselves, co-founder of a private-public partnership designed to tackle the underrepresentation of highly-skilled minority employees in Boston’s innovation ecosystem, Hack. Diversity, co-founder and co-chair of an immigration reform non-profit, the Global EIR Coalition, and co-founder and former chair of the progressive policy organization, The Alliance for Business Leadership. Jeff also serves on the boards of the New England Venture Capital Association and EdX, the massively open online course provider created through a joint venture between Harvard and MIT.

Jeff holds a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and a Ford Scholar.

AWARDS & HONORS

• Selected for Boston Magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People in Boston Right Now” in 2020.
  
• Included as one of the 21 Most Powerful People in Boston Business in Boston Magazine in 2017.
  
• Named one of Boston Magazine's The 30 Most Disruptive People in Boston Tech.
  
• Named one of Boston's 50 Most Powerful People by Boston Magazine in 2015.
  
• Honored as The Civic Tech Innovator of the Year in 2015 by Civic Tech Challenge and Generation Citizen.
  
• Co-winner of the 2015 Barry Shrage Community Builder Award from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston.
  
• Named one of Boston Magazine's Most Powerful Idea People in 2014.
  
• Named one of Mashable's Top 15 People Shaping Boston's Tech Scene.
  
• Named a 2014 "Venture Capitalist" Power Player in Digital Media by AlwaysOn.
  
• Named one of Boston Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 in 2006.