David Petersen
David Petersen
David Petersen is an entrepreneur and investor based in San Francisco, California. He is the co-founder of Buildzoom and Import Genius. [undefined]
Education & Career
David was in Y Combinator in 2013. He is a graduate of University of Maryland, with a degree in Computer Science, and has a Master's Degree in Computer Science from University of Illinois. [undefined]
Before Buildzoom, David worked for Intel as an engineer. During that time he started his first business with Michael Kanko. They imported a variety of goods (steam showers, wood chippers, backhoes, bathtubs, toilets, furniture) from China, branded them, and sold them on the web. They did over $100 million in sales. The business still exists and currently does > 20 mil/year in revenue.
Running an importing business gave David the idea to start Import Genius, which he did with his brother, Ryan Petersen. Import Genius quickly became the largest trade data seller in the world. It is the world's leading provider of international trade data. Customers include Fortune 50 companies, hedge funds, importers, factories, journalists, lawyers, and more.
After running ImportGenius for a few years, David started Buildzoom to solve a very different problem, remodeling homes, using a similar data driven approach. Both businesses are based around making sense out of huge amounts of unstructured data.
Later, he helped Ryan start Flexport. Flexport uses software to solve many of the operational problems importers face. [undefined]
Investments
David has invested in 50 startup seed rounds including Zenefits, Padlet, Medisas, and Everipedia. [undefined]