Top Silicon Valley Insiders Join BootstrapLabs Advisory Board

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Accelerator program for foreign startups gets boost from top minds
in cloud, mobile, infrastructure and marketing

March 25, 2014, San Francisco, California — Silicon Valley-based BootstrapLabs, a global accelerator for foreign technology startups, today announced that Jason Hoffman, VP at Ericsson and Founder of Joyent, Rikard Steiber, Chief Digital Officer at Modern Times Group and former Global Marketing Director of Mobile and Social Advertising at Google and Ariel Poler, active Silicon Valley Angel Investor, Founder of one of the first web-analytics companies and a pioneer of SMS marketing, have joined its advisory board and will act as BrainTrust to BootstrapLabs and its founders.

The purpose of BootstrapLabs Advisory Board is to assist BootstrapLabs’ founders, Nicolai Wadstrom and Benjamin Levy, expand their reach and influence in all corners of the globe to further allow talented entrepreneurs to join Silicon Valley unrivaled ecosystem to build global companies and accelerating equity value creation for all stakeholders.

BootstrapLabs recently announced a round of growth financing to expand its operations internationally and back more foreign entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to go global.

“BootstrapLabs is a great platform for helping entrepreneurs from outside Silicon Valley leverage everything we’ve learned here about starting and growing technology companies,” said Ariel Poler.

“We think it is good practice to apply the same advice we give to our startups and surround ourselves with deeply connected, smart and globally minded individuals that genuinely care about our endeavor and will help us take it to the next level,” said Benjamin Levy, Partner and Co-Founder of BootstrapLabs.

“As an entrepreneur, founder and operator for 20 years – I know that one of the most important things for a founder is to have smart advisors and stakeholders in your company that contribute their expertise and networks. I am very excited to have some of these visionaries that have been part of building the Silicon Valley eco-system on our advisory team,” said Nicolai Wadstrom, Founder of BootstrapLabs.

Meet the BrainTrust

Jason Hoffman is a VP at Ericsson and is the product and P&L owner (GM) of the Ericsson cloud software, hardware and services business and part of the leadership team in Product Area Core Networks, Business Unit Networks. Prior to that he was a founder and the CTO at Joyent, a pioneering high performance cloud IaaS and software provider, where he ran product, engineering, operations and commercial management for nearly a decade. Jason is also an angel investor, strategy and execution advisor, venture and private equity advisor and on the boards of the WordPress Foundation, npm Inc and New Context, a Digital Garage company. Jason has a BS and MS from UCLA and a PhD from UCSD.

Rikard Steiber is Chief Digital Officer and Executive Vice President of Modern Times Group Mtg AB since February 4, 2013. Rikard served as a Global Marketing Director of Mobile and Social Advertising at Google Inc., since September 2009. He served as a Director of Product Marketing at Google EMEA since 2007 and previously headed the global ads marketing team. Rikard was a Co-Founder and CEO of XLENT Strategy and Digiscope Consulting in Stockholm and served as its Chief Executive Officer. He was a Co-Founder of Scandinavia Online AB. He started his career with P&G at the telecom giant TeliaSonera. He has been a Director of Cision AB since March 2012. Rikard is an Alumnus of SDA Bocconi and Chalmers University.

Ariel Poler is an entrepreneur, mentor and investor. Ariel was the founder of IPRO, the first web analytics company, Topica, one of the first email communities, and TextMarks, a pioneering provider of SMS marketing services. He was board member of Kana Software, LinkExchange, StumbleUpon and Odeo. Ariel currently serves on the boards of Freedom Financial and Strava. His angel investments include AdMob, Flixster, Slideshare, VivaReal, Optimizely, Mashery, Thumbtack, Viki and NexTag. Ariel holds a B.S. in Mathematics with Computer Science from MIT and an MBA from Stanford University. He is originally from Venezuela and lives in San Francisco with his wife and three children. Ariel is addicted to kitesurfing – particularly kite racing, foiling and kiting on waves.

About BootstrapLabs

BootstrapLabs runs a 6+6 month hands-­on accelerator program in Silicon Valley tailored for foreign startups. We focus on technology startups with global potential and assist them building disruptive companies by relocating to Silicon Valley, while maintaining their roots in their country of origin. Our approach is focused on relationship building and fast execution to accelerate equity value creation. We connect founders to industry thought leaders, strategic partners and smart investors in our network to ensure their long term success. Since 2009, BootstrapLabs has helped foreign startups such as Prezi, AudioDraft and Zerply connect and relocate to Silicon Valley for good, while maintaining offices in their home countries.

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