Auction.com Promotes Jake Seid, Opens Silicon Valley Office

TORRANCE, Calif. - April 4, 2013 - PRLog -- Auction.com, the world’s largest online real estate marketplace, today announced that it has promoted Jake Seid to Co-President, with shared oversight of all day-to-day operations, and established an office in Belmont, Calif., to tap the talent pool in Silicon Valley.  

Seid, who joined Auction.com in 2011, has extensive experience in technology management and operations.  Previous to Auction.com, he was a Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners, where he was a member of the investment committee and led investments domestically and abroad.  Seid was an early member of Cisco System’s Cable Business Unit which grew from a $1 million to a $1 billion revenue run rate and over 90% market share.  He was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2009 and has served on numerous boards of directors.   Seid holds a M. Eng. and a SB in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.    

“In the short time Jake has been with Auction.com, he has contributed significantly to both our strategy and operational execution,” said Jeff Frieden, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Auction.com.  “He was also the driver behind establishing our Silicon Valley presence and the strong executive talent we’ve recruited there.”

Auction.com is transforming the way real estate is bought and sold through a more efficient and transparent process that maximizes the value of real estate assets in the sales process.  Its Silicon Valley technology and product teams are building the company’s next generation platform, products and services to support Auction.com’s rapidly scaling domestic and international businesses.  The Silicon Valley office will also be home to key team members across marketing, finance, and legal.        

"Real estate transactions have largely been conducted in the same manner for decades and the industry is ripe for technology-driven change," said Jake Seid, Co-President of Auction.com. "We established a Silicon Valley presence to attract the top-tier talent we need to drive our strategy to revolutionize the online sale of commercial and residential assets."

Among the company’s key hires in the Bay Area include its Chief Financial Officer Bruce Felt, previously CFO of SuccessFactors; Chief Technology Officer Ravi Keswani, formerly Vice President of Engineering at Betfair and Coupons.com; Vice President of Data Products Sheridan Hitchens, previously with Kabam; Vice President of Customer Experience David Stern, who was formerly with Electronic Arts and eBay; Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Mindy Heppberger, previously Deputy General Counsel of Yahoo!; and Head of Product Kate Hannah, previously with Betfair and an early employee of its predecessor company.  Auction.com counts among its staff veterans of Cisco, Google, Microsoft, PayPal, StumbleUpon, Trulia, and Zynga.