Geoffrey Arone is an American blockchain investor and advisor.

Career

Arone is currently a partner at Arrington XRP Capital, a hedge fund focused on crypto assets and

blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

tech. He has invested in more than 50 cryptocurrency companies since 2017. Previously, he was Chief Product Officer at

Whitepages A telephone directory, commonly called a telephone book, telephone address book, phonebook, or the white and yellow pages, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that ...

. Prior to that, he was Chief Scientist of

Experian Experian plc is a multinational corporation, multinational data broker and consumer credit reporting company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Experian collects and aggregates information on more than 1 billion people and businesses including ...

, which acquired SafetyWeb in May 2011. Arone co-founded SafetyWeb in June 2009 and raised ~ $8 million from

Battery Ventures Battery Ventures is a global, technology-focused investment firm. Founded in 1983, the firm makes venture-capital and private-equity investments in markets across the globe from offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Israel and Lond ...

and

First Round Capital First Round Capital is a US-based venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage funding to technology companies. Founded by Josh Kopelman and Howard Morgan First Round typically provides seed-stage funding and focuses on po ...

. SafetyWeb is a cloud-based personal security company whose products include SafetyWeb Family and myID. Prior to SafetyWeb, Arone was the CEO and co-founder of DanceJam with

MC Hammer Stanley Kirk Burrell (born March 30, 1962), better known by his stage name MC Hammer (or simply Hammer), is an American rapper known for hit songs such as "U Can't Touch This", "2 Legit 2 Quit", and "Pumps and a Bump", flashy dance movements, e ...

and Anthony Young. While running DanceJam, Arone raised two rounds of venture capital and sold the company to Grind Networks in 2009. In late 2004, Arone co-founded

Flock Flock, flocks or flocking may refer to: * Flock (birds), a gathering of individual birds to forage or travel collectively Arts and entertainment Music * ''Flock'' (Bell X1 album), 2005 * ''Flock'' (Jane Weaver album), 2021 * The Flock (band), ...

, the first web browser with social network integration, with

Bart Decrem Bart Decrem is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who, most recently, headed the Mobile Games business for The Walt Disney Company between July 2010 and the Fall of 2013. He was born and raised in Belgium. Early life His first entrepreneurial ventur ...

and Anthony Young. In all, Flock raised ~ $28 million from

Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) is an American venture capital and private equity firm headquartered in San Francisco. Outside the United States, it has offices in India, Israel, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom. In 2024, Venture Capital Journa ...

Shasta Ventures Shasta Ventures is an early-stage venture capital investment firm located in Silicon Valley that invests in enterprise and technology consumer startups. It is located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. Funds Shasta's second fund of US$250 milli ...

, and

Fidelity Ventures Fidelity is the quality of faithfulness or loyalty. Its original meaning regarded duty in a broader sense than the related concept of ''fealty''. Both derive from the Latin word , meaning "faithful or loyal". In the City of London financial mar ...

. Nearly 6 years and 14 million downloads later, Flock was acquired by

Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher known for its social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile an ...

Education

Arone has also held product positions at

RealNetworks RealNetworks LLC is an American technology company and provider of Internet streaming media delivery software and services based in Seattle, Washington. The company also provides subscription-based online entertainment services and mobile enter ...

Informatica Informatica Inc. is an American software development company founded in 1993. It is headquartered in Redwood City, California. Its core products include enterprise cloud data management and data integration. It was co-founded by Gaurav Dhillon a ...

, and

Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

. He holds a Sc.B. in Neural Science from

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

and his PhD work was also in Neural Science. He earned an MBA from the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (branded as MIT Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree progra ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arone, Geoffrey Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American businesspeople Place of birth missing (living people) MIT Sloan School of Management alumni