Brent Hoberman

Brent Shawzin Hoberman (born 25 November 1968) is a British entrepreneur and investor.

Brent Hoberman was born in Cape Town, South Africa on 25 November 1968.

He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, followed by Eton College.

He subsequently read Modern Languages at New College, Oxford.

During the dot-com boom, he co-founded lastminute.com with Martha Lane Fox in 1998, where he was CEO from its inception, before selling the business to Sabre in 2005 for $1.1bn.

Hoberman remained CEO of lastminute.com throughout 2005, until April 2006 when he handed over the CEO position to Ian McCaig and took the position of chairman and chief strategy officer.

Founders Forum has been hosting invite-only events in London since 2006 and has since 2011 expanded to events in other countries such as the US, Brazil, India, Turkey and China.

He stepped down as chief strategy officer and chairman in January 2007.

Hoberman founded VC-backed internet startup, mydeco.com, an online furniture and interior design site providing 3D technology for consumers to design their own rooms online in 2007 and the website launched in February 2008.

In 2007, Hoberman took on the role of non-executive chairman of Wayn, a travel and leisure social network, and in December 2009, stepped down from the company's board.

In July 2009, Hoberman co-founded PROfounders Capital, a fund that invests in early stage internet projects, with Michael Birch, Peter Dubens, Jonnie Goodwin, Rogan Angelini-Hurll and Sean Seton-Rogers.

Hoberman is the co-founder and was founding chairman of Made.com, an online furniture retailer that is a joint venture between mydeco.com and founder Ning Li.

Hoberman's other business involvements include Made.com, which he co-founded in 2010.

Hoberman left his role as Chair shortly before the company went public with a valuation of $1bn, voicing that he was not in favour of the IPO.

The company was a 'pandemic star' but fell into administration in late 2022.

Brent is also co-founder of the startup accelerator Founders Factory, tech community Founders Forum, and $270m seed fund firstminute capital.

Technology businesses co-founded by Hoberman have cumulatively raised over $1 billion.

Hoberman sits on the advisory boards of Google Cloud, UK Government Digital Service and the WEF Digital Europe Group, as well as advising the British government on technology.

He previously chaired the Oxford Foundry, the Royal Foundation Taskforce on the Prevention of Cyberbullying for William, the Prince of Wales, and had further board roles including The Royal Academy, TalkTalk, TimeOut, The Guardian Media Group, Shazam Entertainment, Eton College, Imperial College Innovation Fund and The Economist.

In 2013, Hoberman launched Founders Intelligence, a digital consultancy that advises corporates and investors on digital innovation and strategy and Founders Forum for Good, the precursor to Founders Pledge, the charitable arm of Founders Forum through which founders can commit a percentage of their future exit proceeds to social causes.

In 2014, Hoberman co-founded Founders Keepers, an executive search firm within the digital and technology space and Smartup, a peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and micro-learning platform.

In December 2015, it was reported that Hoberman was leaving PROFounders Capital.

Hoberman is a co-founder of Founders Forum, a private network for digital and technology entrepreneurs.

In 2015, Hoberman launched corporate-backed tech startup accelerator and studio with Henry Lane Fox in London.

Corporate investors in Founders Factory include The Guardian, L’Oreal, easyJet, CSC Group, Holtzbrinck Macmillan and Aviva, Marks & Spencer and Reckitt Benckiser.

In 2015, Hoberman also launched Grip, an AI event matchmaking business which raised a $13million seed round in 2021.

In 2016, Hoberman launched Founders of the Future which provides programmes, events and tools for aspiring entrepreneurs, and accelerateHER which is a network to support women working in technology.

In 2017, Hoberman was appointed chair of the advisory board for the Oxford Foundry.

In 2018, Founders Factory launched in Africa with corporate investors including Standard Bank and Netcare.

In 2018, Hoberman and Spencer Crawley launched firstminute capital, a $100m pan-European seed fund with Atomico as its cornerstone investor.

In 2019, Founders Factory launched in Paris backed by Aviva France, and in New York backed by Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

In 2019, Hoberman, Riya Pabari and Asha Haji launched Founders Academy, an alternative MBA programme to train startup leaders.

In 2020, Hoberman launched firstminute capital's second fund, a $250m seed fund with global remit, backed by over 100 unicorn founders.

In 2021, Hoberman launched 01 Founders, a free-to-access coding school with a job guarantee with a mission to train 100,000 diverse software engineers by 2030.

The first school is launching in Regent's Park.

In September 2021 he took Made.com public and with his co-founder and initial investors gained £90m by selling shares.

In 2022 the Made.com share price collapsed to close at 0.5p on Oct 25th.

Concerns had started as early as March 2022 after shipping costs increased.

A first profit warning followed in May 2022 and rescue talks which followed were ultimately unsuccessful.

Hoberman has been a non-executive director of TalkTalk, Shazam Entertainment, The Guardian News & Media, The Economist and LetterOne Technology.