General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners
Former entrepreneur turned VC, HBS Senior Lecturer, author of three, dad of three, husband of one, civic leader, and fan of all Boston sports.
Jeffrey J. Bussgang is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at the Harvard Business School as well as Co-Founder and General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm with offices in Boston and New York City and over $1 billion under management across six seed funds and nine network funds. “Unicorn” portfolio companies include BitSight, Chief, FalconX, Habi, MadeiraMadeira, MongoDB and Nasuni. He studies lean startups as well as strategy and management challenges for founders.
Jeff’s investment interests and entrepreneurial experience are in blockchain, consumer, e-commerce, machine learning, and mobile start-ups. On behalf of Flybridge, he has led investments in dozens of companies, including bloXroute, BrightHire, Codecademy, FalconX, Finkargo, Habi, MadeiraMadeira, Noetica, Open English, and Zest AI. Jeff is the cofounder of The Graduate Syndicate, a pre-seed fund that invests in recent Harvard graduates.
Jeff designed and leads the popular second year MBA course Launching Technology Ventures which prepares students to become startup founders and joiners. The course has been taught to over 2,500 students in over 30 sections in its 15 years. Jeff also teaches an application-based second year field course, Venture Capital Journey, for students who aspire to build a career in venture capital. He has written more than 80 case studies, teaching notes, and chapters on startups, entrepreneurship, and venture capital.
Jeff has authored three books: one for AI-forward founders, The Experimentation Machine, one for startup joiners, Entering StartUpLand, and one on venture capital and entrepreneurship, Mastering the VC Game, to provide entrepreneurs an insider’s guide to financing and company-building. Both books have been hailed by the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, TechCrunch and The Financial Times as essential guides for entrepreneurs.
Jeff is an active community member, serving as board chair and co-founder of Hack.Diversity, a talent development program to break down barriers and build access for the next generation in tech, as well as a board member at educational non-profit Facing History and Ourselves and co-founder and board chair of LEADS, an economic and leadership development program for diverse Gateway City leaders.
Prior to co-founding Flybridge, Jeff co-founded and served as President, Chief Operating Officer, and Board Director at Upromise, a loyalty marketing and financial services firm that was acquired by Sallie Mae. He also served as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Business Development, Vice President of Worldwide Professional Services and head of Product Management at Open Market, an Internet commerce software leader that went public in 1996. Prior to Open Market, Jeff was with the strategy consulting firm, The Boston Consulting Group.
Jeff holds a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and a Ford Scholar.