SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Dec. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The groundbreaking former TechCrunch COO Ned Desmond is joining SOSV as a senior operating partner, the firm announced today. Desmond will drive SOSV's rapidly expanding operations, including accelerator alumni programs, marketing and communications.
"Thanks to our five accelerator programs, the SOSV portfolio now includes over 1,000 startups," said SOSV's Founder and Managing General Partner Sean O'Sullivan. "As founders graduate from these programs our goal is to help them raise follow-on investments and succeed as leaders of industry. Given Ned's success at TechCrunch using media, events and data to nourish the startup ecosystem around the world, we can't imagine a better fit than Ned for SOSV as we scale our post-accelerator work with founders, investors and LPs."
Desmond takes up the role in January and will be based in the Bay area, where he currently resides, and will be reporting directly to O'Sullivan.
"I am truly delighted to be joining SOSV," said Desmond, "because I love working with early stage founders and I have gotten to know the SOSV partners and the accelerators, especially HAX and IndieBio, where I have seen the cohorts and partners in action over the years. SOSV has a deep commitment to bettering the world through science and technology, and there's no better way to do that than bringing new founders and great ideas into the world."
Desmond took over the TechCrunch and CrunchBase business leadership in 2012, and led both brands' development to become trusted news and data providers in the startup ecosystem. In 2015, he led the spin-out of CrunchBase as a venture-backed startup.
Desmond drove TechCrunch to become a global tech event powerhouse, building flagship Disrupt brand into a 10,000-person live event by 2018 and expanding the storied Startup Battlefield competition to global scale - more than 900 contestants to date have raised $9 billion and produced 115 exits. In 2019, he launched Extra Crunch, the brand's membership business.
After leaving TechCrunch in August this year, Ned founded Sight Tech Global, a non-profit tech event that explored how AI-based technologies are driving accessibility, especially for the blind and visually impaired.
About SOSV
SOSV invests in deep-tech startups from all over the world. SOSV has over $800 million in assets under management (AUM) and a portfolio of over 1,000 startups. SOSV created the world's first life sciences accelerator in 2014 (IndieBio), the world's first hardware accelerator in 2012 (HAX), and the first accelerator in Asia in 2010 (Chinaccelerator). SOSV also runs Food-X, the #1 food innovation accelerator, and MOX, the leading cross-border mobile internet accelerator based in Asia. The combined portfolio of startups backed by SOSV's accelerators is now worth over $13 billion, and these startups now raise over $1 billion per year.
SOSV has accelerators and operations in San Francisco, New York, Princeton, Shanghai, Taipei, Shenzhen, Xian, Tokyo, London, and Cork, Ireland.
