Dan Serfaty

Dan Serfaty
Occupation	CEO of Viadeo

Dan Serfaty ^[1] (born February 5, 1966 in Strasbourg, France) is a French entrepreneur and businessman.

He is best known as the co-founder and CEO of the professional social network Viadeo.

Biography

After graduating from HEC Paris (Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Paris, France) in 1987, Dan Serfaty spent 2 years abroad before starting his entrepreneurial life. In 1989, he acquired a company in the tourism sector, which business he turned profitable, before selling it in 1991.

At the same time, he co-founded a company specializing in distributing imported clothing products from Asia, which he sold 10 years later.^[2]

In 2000, he founded Agregator,^[3] a club dedicated to entrepreneurs, helping them share their experience, ideas and contacts with other club members, and also a new concept in the financial world: most of Agregator's members were small companies's CEO, financed by venture capital, bringing them liquidity and private equity returns.

The Agregator experience was the context where Dan developed the idea for a business oriented social network, while working originally on some software that would allow club members to access each others' contacts.^[4]

In 2004, with Thierry Lunati, he co-founded Viaduc -the original name of the Viadeo network- ,investing part of the first 5 million euros raised for Agregator. In 2006, the social network platform Viaduc became Viadeo,^[5] as the company was aiming a worldwide development and launching its English and Italian versions. With over 30 millions users worldwide, Viadeo is the second largest professional social network.^[6]

References

1. ^ http://www.whoswho.fr/en/biographie-dan-serfaty_452268.html
2. ^ http://www.eadp.org/?q=node/15445
3. ^ http://watine.typepad.com/weblog/2009/06/viad%C3%A9o-aggregator-r%C3%A9seau-social-et-club-des-entrepreneurs-dan-serfaty-hec-la-fait-.html
4. ^ http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2007/09/viadeo-dan-serf.html
5. ^ http://www.clubic.com/actualite-66697-.html
6. ^ http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/05/11/linkedin-competitor-viadeo-hits-30-million-members/

External links

• [1] Dan Serfaty on Viadeo

Persondata
Name	Serfaty, Dan
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Date of birth	February 5, 1966
Place of birth
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