The Co-Founder Of Bright.com, Bought By LinkedIn For $120 Million, Is 28 And A High School Dropout

Advertisement

Bright.com employees

Eduardo Vivas

Eduardo Vivas (center) surrounded by Bright.com employees

Last week, LinkedIn announced that it was acquiring a cool young startup called Bright.com for $120 million. As we previously reported, this sale was a two-in-a-row hit for one of its co-founders, Eduardo Vivas.

Advertisement

His previous startup, Social Hour, was bought in 2012 for $51.5 million by mobile game network PlayPhone, VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi reported at the time.

And here's one of the most interesting parts: Vivas is only 28 years old and a high school dropout, a LinkedIn spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider.

Vivas obviously didn't get here all by himself. He co-founded Bright.com with another serial founder, Steve Goodman. (Goodman founded PacketTrap, acquired by Quest Software; Lasso Logic acquired by SonicWALL - both now part of Dell; and Learning Productions acquired by SkillSoft.)

Meanwhile, he had a co-founder at Social Hour, Adam Foroughi, who is also onto his next cool startup, Applovin.com. It's backed in a seed round by a bunch of Valley bigwigs including Webb Investment Network, the VC arm of super angel Maynard Webb.

Advertisement

Eduardo Vivas

Eduardo Vivas Facebook

Eduardo Vivas

Vivas and Goodman raised $20 million in venture investment and built Bright into a company with about 30 employee, including "nuclear physicists, astrophysicists, geophysicists, neuroscientists, organizational psychologists, teachers," Vivas wrote in his final blog post on Bright.com.

He's an active angel investor, too, his bio on Bright.com says, with at least one successful exit there, OpenInstall, which sold to AVG Technologies.

Not all of Bright's employees will land at LinkedIn, LinkedIn indicated in a presentation about the acquisition. It said "several members of Bright's team, including those from engineering and product will join LinkedIn."

It also says it will be shutting down Bright's website on Feb. 28.

So, it's not clear how long Vivas will be at LinkedIn, or if he'll soon be out launching yet another startup, a job he seems born to do.

Advertisement