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Steven Schuurman

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Teunis Steven Schuurman, born in Delft (September 1975) is a Dutch technology and media entrepreneur, best known for co-founding and being the first CEO of Elastic, a data search and analytics company listed at the NYSE (ESTC)[1]. After stepping down as CEO of Elastic in 2017, he started to work towards dedicating his time and resources exclusively to philanthropy[2][3]. He is also the co-founder of Atlantis Entertainment[4], SpringSource[5] and the founder of the non-profit organisations the Dreamery Foundation[6] and FutureNL[7].

Career

Schuurman started his career in 2000 at Sogyo, a software consulting and project delivery company. Initially, he was stationed at Business Objects. In 2002 he shifted his focus towards the commercial growth of Sogyo.

In 2005, Schuurman left Sogyo and became the co-owner and Director of the Amsterdam based JTeam, an Amsterdam-based software application development company. Months after joining JTeam, Schuurman left and co-founded the open-source company SpringSource[5] with Rod Johnson, Juergen Hoeller, and Alef Arendsen. Originally branded Interface21, SpringSource delivered products and services around the open-source Enterprise Java framework, the Spring Framework. After having raised various mid-sized rounds of venture capital from venture capital firms Benchmark (Peter Fenton) and Accel (Kevin Efrusy). In August of 2009 SpringSource was acquired by VMware (NYSE: VMW) for $420 million USD[8].

In December of 2009, Schuurman left VMware to come back to JTeam as the CEO. During his 2 year tenure as CEO, Schuurman acquired several companies with JTeam, growing the company by 500%. JTeam rebranded to Orange11 and was acquired in 2012 by the Danish software company Trifork[9].

Elastic

Schuurman co-founded Elastic NV, formerly known by the name of its product Elasticsearch, with Shay Banon[10], Uri Boness and Simon Willnauer. Elastic is a search company that builds self-managed and SaaS offerings for search, logging, analytics, and security use cases. Under Schuurman's leadership, the company became one of Europe's fastest-growing technology scale-ups[11]. In the first 2 years of his tenure as CEO, Schuurman raised various rounds of venture capital investment from Benchmark (Peter Fenton), Index Ventures (Mike Volpi), and New Enterprise Associates (Harry Weller, 1969-2016)[12]. In May of 2017, Schuurman stepped down as CEO of Elastic, and stepped down and co-founder Shay Banon took over[13].

In October of 2018 Elastic went public on the New York Stock Exchange for an introduction price of $36 per share and an opening price of $70, indicating a 94% jump[14]. Elastic is listed as ESTC. Currently, Schuurman serves on the board of directors of Elastic as a non-executive board director.

Atlantis Entertainment

In January of 2016, Schuurman co-founded the Hollywood Hills-based media & entertainment company Atlantis Entertainment together with Nuno Bettencourt and Rene Rigal[4]. Atlantis Entertainment is a full-service media & production company, which creates and produces content through ventures integrating film & television, music, branded entertainment, commercials & digital content. Schuurman serves on the board of directors of Atlantis Entertainment[4].

Wealth

According to Forbes Schuurman has a wealth of $1.5 Billion USD[1]. Schuurman has stated that he has limited interest in money and material items and plans to put his wealth to use for protecting future generations[15]. He currently ranks #2035 on the 2021 Forbes list of wealthiest people[1].

Philanthropy

In 2020, Schuurman founded The Dreamery Foundation[6], which aims to positively contribute to keeping our planet inhabitable for future generations[6]. The foundation financially supports existing initiatives that contribute to achieving its mission. Schuurman has credited the extensive research of the effective altruism community as a major influence.

Since September 2018, Schuurman has been a board member at the Rijksmuseum Fund foundation[16]. As of January 2020, Schuurman serves on the board of Techleap.nl[17]. Schuurman's initial philanthropic activities took place through the foundation he founded in 2014, FutureNL[7]. This foundation aims to bring digital literacy to primary and secondary schools in the Netherlands. According to the foundation, it currently reaches over 60% of primary school children and 40% of secondary school children. Schuurman currently serves on the board of FutureNL as chairman[18].

Politics

Leading up to the Dutch elections in March 2021, Schuurman made donations to political parties in The Netherlands. Via the Dreamery Foundation, he donated €1,000,000 to D66, and another €350,000 to the Party for the Animals[19]. This was the first time in the history of Dutch politics that a private individual has made donations at this scale[20]. Schuurman elaborated on his rationale to make these donations, and the reasons for making them openly, in the Dutch national newspaper Trouw on March 4, 2021[3].

Schuurman explicitly reported not to be a member of any political party, including D66 and Party for the Animals[19]. The stated objective of his donations was to support those parties who have the most rigorous and actionable, comprehensive plans for climate action, and long-term thinking[2].

Awards

In 2014 Schuurman was listed on Goldman Sachs list of Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs. In 2015, Schuurman won the LOEY award, Holland's Entrepreneur of the Year award for technology entrepreneurs[21].

Past activities

Schuurman served as chairman of the board of Dutch scaleup Geophy from 2018 until 2020[22], and as a board member of Dutch non-profit Smart Parks Foundation from 2018 until 2021[23].

References

  1. ^ a b c "#2035 Steven Schuurman". Forbes Rich List. Forbes. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  2. ^ a b "TV appearance on OP1". Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  3. ^ a b Kieskamp, Wilma. "Is the billionaire who donated a million to D66 looking for influence? 'I have the same motivation as someone who donates a few bucks'". Trouw. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  4. ^ a b c "About Us". Atlantis Entertainment. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  5. ^ a b Saberi, Sameri (31 March 2016). "Steven Schuurman: "Launching a product at the right time is the key to success"". Startup Juncture. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  6. ^ a b c "The Dreamery Foundation". Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  7. ^ a b "FutureNL". FutureNL. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  8. ^ Delap, Scott (11 August 2009). "VMware Acquires SpringSource for $420 Million - Industry Reactions (Updated)". InfoQ. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  9. ^ Bech, Hans Peter (12 July 2012). "DANISH TRIFORK ACQUIRES DUTCH ORANGE11". TBK Consult. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  10. ^ "#2378 Shay Banon". Forbes Rich List. Forbes. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  11. ^ "Top 250 Scale-ups 2019". Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  12. ^ Nusca, Andrew. "Big data search startup Elasticsearch raises $10m". ZDNet. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  13. ^ "The Next Chapter: Shay Banon to Succeed Steven Schuurman as Elastic CEO". Elastic. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  14. ^ Novet, Jordan; Colville, Waverly (5 October 2018). "Search company Elastic nearly doubles on first trading day". CNBC. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  15. ^ Borst, Thomas (4 March 2021). "Profile D66 donor Steven Schuurman: committed to the climate, but he does not want political influence IT billionaire Steven Schuurman donated 1.35 million euros to D66 and the Party for the Animals. "I don't care about money."". NRC. Retrieved 2 June 2021. I don't care about money.
  16. ^ "Dick Boer new chairman of the Rijksmuseum Fund". Rijksmuseum.nl. Rijksmuseum. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  17. ^ "Meet the Techleap.nl Supervisory Board". Techleap.nl. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  18. ^ "Who We Are". FutureNL. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  19. ^ a b "Tech entrepreneur makes massive donation to D66 and PvdD". DutchNews.nl. 4 March 2021. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  20. ^ "Overview of gifts and debts of political parties parliamentary elections from 2015 to 23 February 2017". Rijksoverheid. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  21. ^ "Steven Schuurman wins LOEY Award with data company Elastic". NU.nl. 3 September 2015. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  22. ^ "Steven Schuurman joins as GeoPhy's new Board Chairman". GeoPhy. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  23. ^ "Team". Smart Parks. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
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