David Mason

BIO

A veteran technology entrepreneur and e-commerce pioneer, David started one of the first Internet bookstores in 1994, SpeedServe.com, which later became Buy.com. Buy.com had a successful IPO with a market capitalization of $3 billion and raised more than $225 million in capital and was listed on the NASDAQ (ticker: BUYX). David worked as CEO of Buy.com Europe, based in Paris and Munich. David started StudioNow in January 2007. Over a three-year period, he led the company from start-up to exit, successfully selling the company to AOL in 2010 for $36.5 million. StudioNow created a network of 7,000 content creators and provided its video production, management, and distribution solutions to hundreds of large customers and partners, such as AT&T, The Coca-Cola Company, Simon & Schuster, Verizon, Toyota, Ogilvy & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi, NewsCorp, Fox Sports, Sports Illustrated, and many others. While at AOL, David was the Senior Vice President of the Content Platform and led the acquisition of 5Mins Media, which is now AOL On, and has grown revenue from $10 million to over $200 million in three years. David also led the spin out of StudioNow from AOL in 2013, which resulted in StudioNow becoming an independent company. StudioNow has received over $20 million in funding to support its goal of becoming the largest and most active marketplace and SaaS Platform for creating and managing video content. David has been a featured speaker addressing Fortune 500 business leaders at the Business Week E-Business Forum and has also been a featured guest on CNNfn and CNN, in addition to being the focus of technology articles in the New York Times and several other publications. David's experience ranges from developing start-ups into publicly listed companies to venture capital investments, pre-IPO & secondary market transactions, M&A transactions and other investment banking activities within the United States, Asia, and Europe. David graduated with Honors from Sewanee - The University of the South with a Bachelor's degree in History and also completed undergraduate courses at the Department of War Studies, King's College, London. David was the recipient of the University of the South's Distinguished Alumnus award.