Luke Zaientz Joins Rally Ventures as Operating Partner Multi-Time Founder and Executive Brings Extensive Experience in Successfully Launching and Scaling Businesses and Driving Operational Excellence
Menlo Park, CA and Minneapolis, MN
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August 06, 2024 08:03 AM Central Daylight Time
Rally Ventures, a leading venture capital firm focused on early-stage business technology, today announced the addition of Luke Zaientz as Operating Partner. He will work closely with the firm’s portfolio companies, providing expertise in go-to-market, customer success, product prioritization, new market entry, mergers and acquisitions, pricing/product marketing and more.
As the founder, COO and CEO of Reigning Champs, Luke led the student-athlete recruiting platform from inception to over $200M in annual revenue. He executed a highly successful inorganic growth strategy, closing and integrating 10 M&A transactions. Under his leadership, Reigning Champs was sold to Endeavor/IMG Academy and later to EQT for $1.2B.
Prior to Reigning Champs, Luke co-founded, raised growth capital from Kleiner Perkins and scaled RMG Networks, a developer and aggregator of place-based video networks, to IPO. He previously held leadership roles at Match.com, BriteVision, i2 Technology, Ryder and UPS. While at Match.com, Luke launched and scaled Match.com Events from 0 to achieve 6,000 events and 500,000 attendees across all major US and European metro areas within the first two years. Luke is a graduate of Northeastern University and MIT.
“Luke and I have known each other for over a decade. While at SportsEngine, Reigning Champs was our closest integrated partner and our teams spent a lot of time together. Luke’s extensive experience and strategic vision will be invaluable to our portfolio companies as they navigate critical growth phases,” said Justin Kaufenberg, Managing Director of Rally Ventures and founder and former CEO of SportsEngine.
“I’m excited to join the Rally Ventures team and contribute to the success of our portfolio companies. Rally has a stellar reputation for actively supporting entrepreneurs in the growth of their businesses, and I look forward to leveraging my experience to help these companies achieve their full potential,” said Luke Zaientz.
Luke will join Rally’s team of three managing directors, four venture partners and seven professionals. The firm also includes a network of 100+ technology partners — executives, technologists and luminaries — who act as an extension to the Rally Ventures team. The firm is currently investing out of Rally Fund V.
About Rally Ventures
Rally Ventures invests exclusively in early-stage business technology companies, focusing on entrepreneurs creating major new markets or bringing transformative approaches to existing ones. Since 1997, Rally Ventures' partners and venture capital industry veterans have invested in or run early stage enterprise business-to-business technology companies with a proven ability to deliver superior returns regardless of the overall market environment. For more information visit rallyventures.com.
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Rally Ventures
Rachel Subasic
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