Alexander Muse is an American internet entrepreneur who has founded several internet companies including

LayerOne LayerOne, Inc. acquired by Switch and Data, Switch & Data , in 2005, was a United States, U.S. private corporation that provides carrier-neutral Data center, datacenters and interconnection. Services LayerOne was a provider of network-neutral dat ...

ShopSavvy ShopSavvy is a mobile application for shopping that scans products and finds online and local stores providing those products. Additionally, ShopSavvy compares the prices, displays user reviews, and searches for deals and discounts on scanned ite ...

, Architel, and ViewMarket (among others). His most recent endeavor, Sumo Ventures, invests in early-stage startups.

Early life and education

Muse was born in

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city status in the United Kingdom, city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is admi ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...

. He attended the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

where he studied

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

before leaving in 1995 to pursue his career.

Career

Muse's first venture was an

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privatel ...

, which was founded in 1997 and eventually acquired by DNA Technologies for an undisclosed amount. Muse then co-founded (with Brandon Freeman) LayerOne, a carrier-neutral colocation and

interconnection In telecommunications, interconnection is the physical linking of a carrier's network with equipment or facilities not belonging to that network. The term may refer to a connection between a carrier's facilities and the equipment belonging t ...

services provider based in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

, in 1999. In November 2000 the firm was wiring the elevator shaft and an entire floor of the Univision Center in Dallas, Texas, with fiber-optic cables and telecommunications switches as what Muse called "an optical service provider."David Koenig, Associated Press, "Demand for Internet Lines Creates Telecom Hotels," ''El Paso (Texas) Times,'' November 5, 2000, image 58
/ref> The company filed for bankruptcy in 2001, but, with a team of investors, Muse was able to buy the company out of bankruptcy on September 12, 2001. Muse served as CEO of LayerOne until 2003. Also in 2001, Muse co-founded (with Scott Ryan) Architel, an information services technology company based in Dallas. Four years later, Muse sold LayerOne to

Switch and Data Switch and Data Facilities Company, Inc. was a U.S. public corporation that provided network-neutral data centers and Internet exchange services to network-centric businesses. Switch and Data was acquired by Equinix in 2010. Switch and Data pro ...

(now owned by

Equinix Equinix, Inc. is an American multinational company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that specializes in Internet connection and data centers. The company is a leader in global colocation data center market share, with 240 data center ...

). That sale, in addition to profits earned by Architel, allowed Muse to focus on and fund a

business incubator Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture c ...

called Big in Japan, which he also co-founded. Big in Japan, which was founded in Dallas in 2007, would be responsible for the incubation and creation of a variety of notable companies and properties including ShopSavvy, Fancast,

MotorSport Ranch (TV series) ''MotorSport Ranch'' is an American reality television series created by Alexander Muse. The show centers on a real-life country club where instead of a golf course or tennis courts, the members have access to two world class road courses. Motor ...

, WhiteBox, SimpleTicket, and others. One of the first companies to come out of the Big in Japan incubator was Fancast, a social video and

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

service, in 2007. The company would eventually be sold to Comcast Interactive for an undisclosed amount of money. ShopSavvy, a company that produces an

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

and iOS shopping and barcode scanner app, was founded in 2008 after winning the Google Android Developer Challenge. In 2009, Muse was honored with the Netexplorateur Award at the

French Senate The Senate (french: Sénat, ) is the upper house of the French Parliament, with the lower house being the National Assembly, the two houses constituting the legislature of France. The French Senate is made up of 348 senators (''sénateurs'' a ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

for his work on the app. The

United States Patent Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alex ...

granted Muse and his co-founders two key patents related to ShopSavvy (No. 20130297390 and No. 20130297464) in 2013. In 2011, ShopSavvy raised money in a funding round led by

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

co-founder,

Eduardo Saverin Eduardo Luiz Saverin (; ; born March 19, 1982) is a Brazilian billionaire entrepreneur and angel investor based in Singapore. Saverin is one of the co-founders of Facebook. In 2012, he owned 53 million Facebook shares (approximately 2% of all o ...

. At that time, the app had accrued around 20 million downloads and Muse had facilitated thousands of partnerships with businesses like

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

Best Buy Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...

, Barnes & Noble,

Target Target may refer to: Physical items * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...

, and others. Muse held several roles at ShopSavvy including CEO and Executive Chairman. The company would eventually be sold to Purch in 2015 for an undisclosed amount of money. In 2014, Muse co-founded (with Robert Bennett) ViewMarket, a collection of online lifestyle brands like CultureMap, Courtem, RSVP, and others. ViewMarket purchased CultureMap in April 2015. In June 2016, Muse sold Architel to Centre Technologies and founded a venture fund called Sumo Ventures. At its outset, the business had plans to invest in between 100 and 150 companies, most of which were early-stage companies. At Sumo Ventures, Muse's father, Ralph Muse, and his sister, Caroline Branch, serve as venture partner and CFO respectively.

Personal life

Muse lives in Dallas with his two children. He is one of the founding advisors to the Dallas Entrepreneur Center and has been credited as one of the earliest proponents of the startup community in Dallas, having helped organize events such as BarCamp, Dallas Startup Weekend, and Dallas Startup Happy Hour. He is a member of the board of trustees for the Dallas Historical Society.

References

External links

Official websiteSumo Ventures official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muse, Alexander 1972 births University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts alumni Living people American bloggers American company founders