Max Levchin

HVF Labs starts companies with the people that will operate them.

HARD /härd/. Harness an exceptional technology.

VALUABLE /ˈvaly(əw)əb(ə)l/. Solve significant problems.

FUN /fən/. Operate with passion to help build the world we want to live in.

Founders join us to play with, think deeply about, and work on hard problems. HVF creates companies, including Yelp, Affirm, and Glow.

HARD TECH THAT SOLVES HARD PROBLEMS. HVF focuses on technology and data advantages that can solve substantial problems. We found a company after a compelling technology becomes broadly accessible.

WORK TOGETHER, ON WHAT CAPTIVATES YOU. Our Entrepreneurs in Residence and core team work on proto-ideas of their choosing. Founding teams are forged by searching and working together. We draw from HVF's community of founders, friends, and Levchin portfolio companies.

FOCUS ON 1-2 PROJECTS AT A TIME. Your ideas get our complete attention. Expect strategic advice, deep product and technical contributions, with a team of involved co-founders.

WITH OUR FOUNDERS FOR THE LONG HAUL. We work alongside our Companies in Residence for 12-24 months. HVF remains deeply involved in the companies we start, and in our alumni.

Glow is a data science company that empowers women and couples to take control of their sexual and reproductive health. We have already created the world's largest reproductive health data set, and our vision is to leverage this data to lower healthcare costs and improve health outcomes.

Member Board Of Directors

Member Board Of Directors

The Consumer Advisory Board helps to strengthen the CFPB's charge to serve and protect consumers by ensuring that the Bureau receives a wide range of insight, expertise, analysis and information about consumer finance market trends and practices.

Member Board of Directors

Member Board of Directors

First Investor in and Chairman of Yelp -- started from within my first startup lab, MRL.

Google acquired Slide in August of 2010.

Prior to acquisition by Google, Slide was a leading developer of social applications, primarily on the Facebook platform, spanning several diverse segments, such as photo and video self-expression and social games. At peak traffic, Slide's photo-sharing widgets alone reached over 150m monthly users worldwide.

As founder and CEO I created the vision for the company (and adjusted as the market rapidly evolved), recruited and managed the senior team, worked closely with the Product Management staff on our products and Engineering on the implementation, raised tens of millions of dollars from angels, venture and institutional investors, and ultimately negotiated the successful sale of the company to Google.

Co-founded PayPal and was its Chief Technology Officer for four years, seeing the company through development, launch, merger with an arch-rival, two CEO removals, going public and being sold to eBay. Recruited the engineering team, designed and built the networks and software running PayPal site and back-end, designed and built PayPal's (somewhat notorious) security and fraud-prevention systems.