Kevin O’Connor

Kevin has 30+ years of experience in the tech space – both as an entrepreneur and investor. Kevin is currently the General Partner at ScOp Venture Capital in Santa Barbara. Just prior, he was the CEO of Graphiq (acquired by Amazon), who's mission was to drastically simplify the process of obtaining the world's knowledge. Kevin was the founder, CEO, and chairman of internet advertisement-technology giant, DoubleClick, which was acquired by Google in 2007 for $3.1 billion. Prior to DoubleClick, Kevin founded and served as the vice president of research for Cincinnati-based Intercomputer Communications Corporation (ICC), which was acquired by DCA in 1992. Kevin remained with DCA as the vice president of research until 1995 when he left to found DoubleClick.

From 1995 - 2009, on breaks from building his own companies, Kevin started O'Connor Ventures, investing in companies such as Procore, Internet Security Systems, 1-800-Flowers.com, HotJobs, and MeetUp. Kevin obtained a Bachelors of Science degree in electrical engineering with honors from University of Michigan. Kevin currently resides in Santa Barbara, California.

Partner

Company: ScOp Venture Capital (formerly O'Connor Ventures)

Dates Employed: Jun 2018 – Present

Location: Santa Barbara, California Area

ScOp stands for Scalable Opportunities. You’ve created an opportunity by solving an important problem for your customers. Now, you want to scale your organization but you need capital and insightful advice. ScOp Venture Capital can help take your company to the next level - up and to the right.

Board Director

Company: Procore Technologies

Dates Employed: May 2004 – Present

Location: Carpinteria, CA

Procore Technologies provides cloud-based construction software to clients worldwide.

CEO

Company: Graphiq (acquired by Amazon)

Dates Employed: May 2009 – May 2018

Location: 101 Innovation Place, Santa Barbara, CA, 93108

Graphiq (formerly FindTheBest) was a data aggregation and visualization company that turned complicated data into contextually rich presentations of the world's knowledge. Graphiq operated many trusted vertical search engines for consumers, including tech gadgets, education, pets, financial services, and more. Amazon acquired Graphiq in 2017, and it is now a core of the Alexa product line. The original concept of Graphiq is now being developed as TheDataProject.ai, which includes topics like mental health facilities and PPP loan lookup.

Venture Capital

Company: O'Connor Ventures

Dates Employed: 2001 – 2008

Employment Duration: 7 yrs

Location: Santa Barbara, California

Provided seed capital to technology companies in southern California.

Education

College: University of Michigan

Degree Name: Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE)

Dates attended: 1979 – 1983

Activities and Societies: President, Eta Kappa Nu (HKN)

High School: Detroit Catholic Central

Dates attended: 1975 – 1979

Sports: Wrestling and pole vaulting.

Author

Title: The Map of Innovation: Creating Something out of Nothing

Synopsis: The Map of Innovation is O’Connor’s step-by-step approach to devising lucrative new products and services and bringing them to market, through a process that has proven itself time and again in many different industries. Too often, people trying to innovate focus on things that don’t matter or waste their time trying to find answers to questions that can’t be answered. O’Connor shows why the map of innovation centers on getting right the five make-or-break fundamentals: creating a large number of viable ideas; picking the right idea to pursue; creating a highly focused strategy to bring the idea to market; getting the money to fund the strategy; and hiring the best people. With Kevin O’Connor, the proof of the value of methodical innovation is in the pudding. He helped start companies that have employed thousands of people and created billions in shareholder value.