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Daniel Hoffer is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is co-founder and former CEO of the hospitality exchange service, CouchSurfing.

Hoffer is currently Managing Director at Autotech Ventures, a California-based venture capital firm that invests in ground transportation startups.

Background
Hoffer grew up in Brookline. He started his first dot-com company at age 15, and has been involved in internet-related communities and businesses since 1990. During high school, he ran an online Bulletin Board System and an educational program that connected physically-challenged individuals with other students online.

Hoffer graduated with an A.B. degree in Philosophy from Harvard University, then completed his M.B.A. at Columbia University.

Career
Hoffer co-founded Fuxito Worldwide, a venture-backed soccer website. While working at Fuxito, he hired Casey Fenton and Sebastien Letuan in 1999.

He worked as a strategist at NEC Corporation and in sales at Siebel Systems. In 2007, he moved into product management at Symantec. Daniel also subsequently worked at Concur as Head of Produt for TripIt.

CouchSurfing
Daniel Hoffer and Sebastian Letuan assisted Casey Fenton as co-founders of CouchSurfing. They registered the company as a non-profit in 2003.

Hoffer was Couchsurfing's chief operating officer and head of revenue-generation while the company was operating as a non-profit. He was later appointed chairman of the board.

In 2010, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), denied the company's application for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Hoffer then became CEO of CouchSurfing, joined Benchmark Capital as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and converted CouchSurfing to a for profit certified B corporation.

In 2011, as CEO, Hoffer raised $7.6 million in Series A venture capital funding for CouchSurfing. The funding was led by Benchmark Capital and Omidyar Network.

In 2012, Hoffer resigned as CEO of Couchsurfing, and was replaced by Tony Espinoza.

Other Ventures
In 2015, Hoffer was named a Partner at Tandem Capital, a Silicon Valley mobile-first seed venture capital fund.

In 2018, he was named as a part-time General Partner in Austrian VC fund, SpeedInvest.

As managing director at Autotech, Hoffer executed the company's investments in SWVL, a private transit start-up in Dubai and Cairo, that later went public in NASDAQ, BusUp, a shuttle platform in Barcelona, and in Bus.com, a charter bus service in Montreal. His pursuit of bus startups earned him the nickname, "The Bus King."

In 2017, Hoffer was one of the Angel investors investors involved in the $30 million funding for online parking marketplace, SpotHero.

In 2020, Hoffer was one of the angel investors involved in the $10 million funding for online learning platform, Preply.

Daniel Hoffer has also been a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Personal Life
Hoffer publishes in Forbes and TechCrunch. Hoffer teaches martial arts in his spare time as he is a licensed martial arts instructor. Hoffer lives in Menlo Park, California.

Board Positions, Past and Present

 * CouchSurfing International
 * American Jewish Commitee
 * Trucklabs