Saar Gur

Saar Gur is a General Partner at CRV, one of Silicon Valley's most established early-stage venture capital firms. He joined CRV in March 2007 and has since become one of the firm's most prominent investors, earning five appearances on the Forbes Midas List and shepherding four portfolio companies to IPO. Forbes named him one of the top 8 up-and-coming venture capitalists, and Venture Capital Journal recognized him as a top-10 VC under the age of 36.

Before joining CRV, Gur was a co-founder of BrightRoll, a video advertising platform he started out of his San Francisco apartment in 2006. BrightRoll grew into a leading video ad network and was ultimately acquired by Yahoo in 2014. Earlier in his career, he served as Vice President of Customer Acquisition at Aderactive (2004-2006), where he helped build the company to over $160 million in revenue without any outside funding. He also co-founded Carebadges.com, which was acquired by Facebook Causes. His first roles in finance and technology were as a Technology Analyst at Lehman Brothers (1997-1999) and subsequently as a Venture Associate at Lehman Venture Capital (1999-2001).

Gur holds a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1994-1998) and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business (2001-2003). He also serves as an instructor in Stanford GSB's StartupGarage program. Outside of work, he is an avid surfer, skier, backpacker, and mountaineer, and has organized trips to Yosemite, Mount Kilimanjaro, and British Columbia with founders and friends. His wife is also an entrepreneur who ran a chain of small businesses for 11 years.

Saar Gur invests early in startups that tap into not-yet-obvious-but-soon-to-be-massive shifts in consumer behavior -- especially those that create and deliver experiences rather than just products. His guiding philosophy is that "technology can help people live better lives and support the American dream."

His core focus areas include:

Gur's preferred "strike zone" is what he calls "post-product / pre-traction" -- companies that have already built a working product but have not yet achieved significant market validation. He looks for founders who "dare to be weird" and build solutions that seem unconventional at first but demonstrate clear early utility. He prioritizes massive market opportunities (businesses capable of generating billions in revenue) and places heavy emphasis on founder-market fit: founders who are deeply obsessed with the problems they are solving and can teach investors something new about the space.

• Consumer technology and marketplaces -- platforms that reshape how people discover, purchase, or experience services
• SMB software -- tools that empower small and medium businesses
• Fintech and financial services -- companies democratizing access to financial products
• Communication and productivity platforms
• Gaming and interactive entertainment -- he has expressed interest in games built for VR, Twitch, and social platforms
• AI and data-driven innovation -- including recent investments in AI-powered healthcare