Bradley Andrew Feld (born December 1, 1965) is a venture capitalist at Mobius Venture Capital. He is also an entrepreneur, philanthropist, art collector, marathoner, and a popular blogger.


Feld concentrates his investments in software and Internet companies, where his successes include net.Genesis, Service Metrics, Service Magic, The Feld Group, Rebar, Critical Path, Cyanea, and Raindance Communications, as well as a few spectacular Internet boom-and-bust companies including Interliant and MessageMedia.

He is known in the industry for his intense, high-bandwidth work style, vast transactional and operating experience, hyper-casual attire, irreverent directness and earthy language, and a general eccentricity. Friends know him as strongly loyal, forthright with both praise and critique, and generous to a fault.

Feld earned his S.B. and S.M. degrees from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He and his wife Amy Batchelor live and work near Eldorado Springs, Colorado, outside Boulder, and in Homer, Alaska during the summer.

Early life

Feld was born in Blytheville, Arkansas on December 1, 1965 to Stanley Feld, MD, a well-known clinical endocrinologist and healthcare system agitator, and Cecelia Feld, a contemporary-style artist known for inventing new media and forms. In 1968 the family moved to Dallas, Texas, where his parents still live today.

Instead of the usual fast-food and retail jobs most teenagers hold, Feld tutored students in math and wrote oil and gas exploration and accounting software for Petcom Systems of Dallas, modestly declaring himself at the age of 18 as "one of the world's best BASIC programmers."

College

Feld was an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and lived at the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, beginning in 1983. He majored in Management and started his first business, Martingale Software, in 1984, with several fraternity brothers, with the goal of writing software for the Macintosh. This business never got off the ground, but within a year he had started Feld Technologies to develop business applications. With several fits and starts, Feld Technologies became a thriving customer business software and network integration firm based in downtown Boston, with numerous consulting firms, law firms, and venture capital firms as clients. Feld Technologies was sold to AmeriData Technologies in 1993.

Investing

After the sale of his company, Feld began making seed investments, including net.Genesis, a very early Internet startup. Through this he met some of the partners of SOFTBANK, and he joined as a venture affiliate and later as a partner.

Has been said that he created a conflict of interest at some of his investments. Was paid as consultant while companies lost money. Was said to have brought in friends rather than best talent. Merges companies to hide losses it has been reported.

As the Internet boomed, Feld invested in a wide variety of web startups, helped raise new funds for SOFTBANK Venture Capital, and co-founded several companies. At one point, he was on the boards of no fewer than 35 firms, yet none of these firms suffered from inattention, as Feld worked 20-hour days.
SOFTBANK Venture Capital, now known as Mobius Venture Capital, eventually raised a $1 billion plus fund which it is currently investing.

Feld has been strongly involved in the entrepreneurship development community, working with the Kaufmann Foundation, the MIT 50K (then 10K) competition, and founding both the Boston and Colorado chapters of the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (YEO).

Running, art collecting, and blogging

Feld ran his first marathon in Dallas, Texas as a teenager, but largely suspended his running career until 2003, when he trained for and ran the Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska on June 21, 2003. He subsequently established a goal of running a marathon in every U.S. state by age 50. After completing the Chicago, Ft. Collins, Colorado, and New York City marathons he is five states into that goal. Feld’s running is frequently hampered by gout, injuries, and an occasionally brutal work schedule, but he persists nonetheless.

Brad and his wife Amy are avid art collectors, with an eclectic contemporary collection that includes Cecelia Feld, Doug West, Don Coen, Emilio Lobato, Cindy Kane, Jerry Wingren, and other Boulder area artists. As there is only limited space in their home to display art, their collection can be seen in a variety of locations in Boulder, including the Mobius office, the Nature Conservancy office, and the homes of friends.

Feld has become known in the wider business community through his popular blog entitled “Feld Thoughts.” He was one of the first venture capitalists to write a blog, and subsequently made several investments in companies capitalizing on the blogging boom, including FeedBurner and NewsGator. Consistent with his style, the blog is direct, irreverent, and insightful.

It is said that he edits his own wikipedia entry to remove items he does not like