| Mark Tluszcz | |
| Birth Date: | 18 August 1966 |
| Nationality: | Luxembourgish-American |
| Alma Mater: | Eckerd College, St Petersburg, Florida |
| Occupation: | Venture capitalist |
| Known For: | Early investor in Skype and Wix.com |
Mark Tluszcz is an American businessman and venture capitalist who is co-founder and CEO of Mangrove Capital Partners, a venture capital firm he set up in 2000.[1] He also serves as Chairman of Wix.com (NASDAQ:WIX), a popular website building platform.[2] His achievements include turning a $2m investment in Skype into $200m[3] and a $8m investment in Wix.com into $700m.[4]
Tluszcz spent the first 10 years of his professional career at Arthur Andersen, ultimately becoming a partner in its business consulting practice before running its European venture capital fund. During this time he personally invested in a number of businesses including the Frederick Brewing Company which listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
In 2000 he founded Mangrove Capital Partners with Gerard Lopez and Hans-Jürgen Schmitz. He was the first investor in Skype,[3] a telecoms business founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström - who were at the time known for founding Kazaa, the peer-to-peer file sharing application. On 14 October 2005 Skype was acquired by eBay and Tluszcz was named as one of the most respected technology dealmakers globally by Forbes magazine.[5]
In 2006, Tluszcz backed cloud-based web development platform Wix.com. He persuaded Wix.com not to sell when it was offered $400m and the company went on to float on NASDAQ in 2013. Its market capitalisation reached $5bn in 2018.[6] It remains the largest tech IPO to come out of Israel.[7]
Tluszcz's firm looks at 2,000 startup deals a year but invests in just six. It has made approximately 100 investments into early-stage technology companies predominantly in Europe and Israel since it was founded in 2000. The company has raised four funds and has $750 million in "assets under management". In 2016 it had seven or eight startups in its portfolio enjoying rapid growth and worth over £100 million.[8]
Tluszcz is on the advisory board of The Lydian Group, a tech conglomerate (company) founded by Gérard López and Greg Fishman.[9]
Tluszcz drew controversy in April 2015 when he stated that the majority of 'unicorn' companies (those claiming to be worth over $1bn) were in fact 'fakies'.[10] Later in the year the technology industry experienced a significant correction with many highly prized companies seeing their values slashed. Having been valued at over $1bn in 2015, Shazam was acquired by Apple in 2017 in a deal thought to be worth $400m.[11]
In April 2016 and amid growing excitement in the fintech sector, Tluszcz attracted controversy again by writing about a 'fintech mirage' in an article published by the Financial Times which advised investors to ignore the hype about fintech, called for greater regulation and raised concerns about the peer-to-peer lending sector.[12] Weeks later peer-to-peer lending platform Lending Club revealed on its earnings call that the CEO had been removed for unethical behaviour. The company's stock crashed 50%, seeing its market capitalization fall by $1.5bn over the following two weeks.[13] He also predicted that app-only banks may struggle to gain the trust of consumers and grow their customer base.[14]
Tluszcz has also expressed doubts over the business models of Gig economy companies such as Uber and Deliveroo[15] which have been accused of not paying adequate wages and taxes. He predicted these businesses will have to go through massive structural changes driven by individual countries’ laws.[16] When Deliveroo listed on the stock market in 2021 it fell 26% and was referred to bankers as ‘worst IPO in London’s history’.[17]