Keith Schacht | |
---|---|
Born | United States | 9 December 1979
Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign |
Known for | Mystery Science TED Conference |
Spouse | Pari Schacht |
Keith Schacht (born 9 December 1979) is an American entrepreneur and angel investor. [1] He is the CEO and co-founder of Mystery Science and is on the board of directors of eSpark Learning. [2] Schacht is a named inventor on 9 patents. [3] Early in his career he was named one of the top 20 entrepreneurs under 25 by BusinessWeek. [4] He has been a speaker at the TED Conference and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, [5] Forbes, [6] Fortune, [7] and Wired. [8]
Schacht's first company, founded while in college, was Lever Works, a custom software development shop. It was co-founded with Brian Witlin and Zach Kaplan. In December 2001 Lever Works was sold to Leo Media for an undisclosed sum. [9]
In 2002, Schacht co-founded Inventables, a company that educates companies about new materials and technologies. The company was featured in numerous publications including Forbes in 2006 [6] and Wired in 2007. He also gave a talk on "Toys from the Future" [10] at the TED Conference in 2005
In 2007, Schacht founded Crafted Fun, an early company building applications on the Facebook platform. Crafted Fun raised funding from Apex Ventures and Naval Ravikant. [11] The company developed a range of Facebook applications including Grow-a-Gift which was cited as a top application used by millions of people. [12]
In 2010, Schacht joined Facebook as a product manager and launched an updated version of News Feed in 2011. [13] [14] [15] He left the company in 2012. During his time at Facebook he was a named inventor on 9 patents. [3]
In 2013, Schacht co-founded Mystery Science with Doug Peltz. Mystery Science creates open-and-go lessons for elementary teachers and helps them teach science without requiring a background in science. [16] A couple notable interviews with Y Combinator, one their investors, detailed an unconventional business model in which the company sold to schools and districts across the United States without a sales team. [17] [18] Mystery Science has grown to be the most widely used science resource in American elementary schools; tt is used by more than 50% of elementary schools reaching more than four million children each month. [19] In 2020 Mystery Science was acquired by Discovery Education for $140 million. [20] Schacht is listed as the majority shareholder at the time of acquisition [21] bringing his total net worth up to at least $70 million.
Schacht is an investor in at least 25 private companies and numerous public companies. Notable investments include investing in Boom, Credit Karma, Canva, Epic!, Angellist, OpenGov, Square (pre-IPO), Tesla (pre-IPO), and Facebook (pre-IPO). [22]
Keith Schacht | |
---|---|
Born | United States | 9 December 1979
Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign |
Known for | Mystery Science TED Conference |
Spouse | Pari Schacht |
Keith Schacht (born 9 December 1979) is an American entrepreneur and angel investor. [1] He is the CEO and co-founder of Mystery Science and is on the board of directors of eSpark Learning. [2] Schacht is a named inventor on 9 patents. [3] Early in his career he was named one of the top 20 entrepreneurs under 25 by BusinessWeek. [4] He has been a speaker at the TED Conference and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, [5] Forbes, [6] Fortune, [7] and Wired. [8]
Schacht's first company, founded while in college, was Lever Works, a custom software development shop. It was co-founded with Brian Witlin and Zach Kaplan. In December 2001 Lever Works was sold to Leo Media for an undisclosed sum. [9]
In 2002, Schacht co-founded Inventables, a company that educates companies about new materials and technologies. The company was featured in numerous publications including Forbes in 2006 [6] and Wired in 2007. He also gave a talk on "Toys from the Future" [10] at the TED Conference in 2005
In 2007, Schacht founded Crafted Fun, an early company building applications on the Facebook platform. Crafted Fun raised funding from Apex Ventures and Naval Ravikant. [11] The company developed a range of Facebook applications including Grow-a-Gift which was cited as a top application used by millions of people. [12]
In 2010, Schacht joined Facebook as a product manager and launched an updated version of News Feed in 2011. [13] [14] [15] He left the company in 2012. During his time at Facebook he was a named inventor on 9 patents. [3]
In 2013, Schacht co-founded Mystery Science with Doug Peltz. Mystery Science creates open-and-go lessons for elementary teachers and helps them teach science without requiring a background in science. [16] A couple notable interviews with Y Combinator, one their investors, detailed an unconventional business model in which the company sold to schools and districts across the United States without a sales team. [17] [18] Mystery Science has grown to be the most widely used science resource in American elementary schools; tt is used by more than 50% of elementary schools reaching more than four million children each month. [19] In 2020 Mystery Science was acquired by Discovery Education for $140 million. [20] Schacht is listed as the majority shareholder at the time of acquisition [21] bringing his total net worth up to at least $70 million.
Schacht is an investor in at least 25 private companies and numerous public companies. Notable investments include investing in Boom, Credit Karma, Canva, Epic!, Angellist, OpenGov, Square (pre-IPO), Tesla (pre-IPO), and Facebook (pre-IPO). [22]