2020 Strakosch Venture Competition — Spotlight Company #5
Meet Jebbit: From Online Advertising To Being the World’s Leading Declared Data Platform
Founded by former Boston College students Tom Coburn, Jonathan Lacoste, and Chase McAleese, Jebbit has grown from a student startup founded on Boston College’s campus to the world’s leading Declared Data Platform.
In 2010, Coburn and his then freshman Shaw House roommate, Jeb Thomas, decided to work on an idea for the Boston College Venture Competition (BCVC) and it’s $10,000 first-place prize after Thomas introduced BCVC to Coburn. The competition has since been renamed Strakosch Venture Competition and has become a program under the Shea Center for Entrepreneurship, with increased prize money as well. During his sophomore year, Coburn came up with what would become Jebbit while watching pre-roll ads on a TV show online while waiting for a flight for a BC club golf tournament. After realizing advertisers were losing money from the lack of consumer attention, Coburn developed a business idea that would guarantee customer engagement and their understanding of a company’s message. During his flight, Coburn outlined a business plan that ultimately became a part of their BCVC proposal a few weeks later for their business, “Add It Up.”
This early version of Jebbit tied for first place in BCVC and its $10,000 prize that year. That summer, in 2011, the team was accepted into Highland Capital’s highly competitive Summer@Highland program, where entrepreneurs were given $15,000, office space, and access to entrepreneurial mentors and other valuable resources to build up their company. The team changed the company name to Jebbit after learning “Add It Up” was being used elsewhere, and grew quickly to fifteen people, including adding on current President and co-founder Jonathan Lacoste.
Coburn and Lacoste eventually decided to take a leave of absence from BC to work on Jebbit full-time when Coburn was a second-semester senior and Lacoste was in his third-semester at BC. Shortly after, Jebbit was accepted into TechStars, a prestigious Boston startup accelerator that also provided $100,000 in financing, making the team the youngest ever to be awarded such a coveted spot. Since then, Jebbit has gone on to raise over $22 million dollars in funding and partnered with Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, Epsilon, Coca-Cola, Bose, and other big brands. The company has also been named to The Boston Globe’s “25 Under 25” Hot List, and Coburn and Lacoste have been selected to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list for Marketing & Advertising in 2015 and Inc.’s “30 Under 30” list in 2018.
Today, Coburn and Lacoste continue to grow Jebbit and launch the company into continued success at its Boston headquarters. If you want to learn more about Jebbit, check them out here!
In 2011, Tom Coburn took a chance and entered the Strakosch Venture Competition (then known as BCVC). He left the competition with a $10,000 check to continue building Jebbit. Any BC student, undergraduate or graduate, can do the same and win even more prize money for their own company! There is still time left to enter Start@Shea’s annual Strakosch Venture Competition. The application can be found here and if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to us via our email listed below! The application is due 04/14/2020 at 11:59pm EDT. Follow us on our social media pages listed below for the latest updates on the competition.
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