Frédéric Mazzella
Born (1976-03-09) March 9, 1976
Nantes, France
Alma materLycée Henri IV
École Normale Supérieure
Stanford University
INSEAD
Known forFounder of BlaBlaCar

Frédéric Mazzella (born March 9, 1976[1]) is a French entrepreneur and the founder of BlaBlaCar, an online marketplace for carpools.

Early life and education

Mazzella was classically trained as a pianist and was educated at some of the best schools in France. After majoring in maths, physics and chemistry at the Lycée Henri IV, he received a Master of Physics at the École Normale Supérieure (Normal Sup). While a student at Normal Sup, he received an internship in the robotics department of Stanford University, designing a virtual tool to allow surgeons on NASA spaceflights practice procedures before performing them on astronauts. In 1999, he enrolled at Stanford in a master's program in computer science.[2]

Career

After receiving a degree, he returned to Paris and began working for Kabira. At Kabira Frédéric quickly demonstrated a high level of ability to perform in any role assigned, quickly moving from Support to Project Management and Pre-Sales, even composing the music for the on-hold tone on the in house phone system. It was obvious that he was quickly outgrowing the organisation.[2] In 1999, he also worked as a consultant for Blue Pumpkin and in 2000, he worked as a research assistant for Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in Japan.[1]

In September 2015, Mazzella was ranked 49th on the WIRED list of top 100 digital influencers.[3]

BlaBlaCar

In December 2003, Mazzella wanted to travel from Paris to visit his family in the French countryside for Christmas but he did not own a car and the trains were fully booked. After his sister made a 150-kilometer detour to collect him, he noticed that most cars going in his direction did not have any passengers. During nights and weekends, he began working on creating a concept to address the issue. By 2006, he bought a website called Covoiturage.fr, French for "carpooling", probably inspired from what is running in one big neighbour country for years.[2]

In 2007, Mazzella enrolled at the Master of Business Administration program at INSEAD.[2]

In 2008, along with Francis Nappez and Nicolas Brusson, he launched BlaBlaCar. In 2015, BlaBlaCar raised $200m bringing total funding to over $300m and valuing the company at $1.6bn.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 Miguet, François (14 March 2016). "Les Petits Secrets de Frederic Mazzella, P-DG de BlaBlaCar". Capital.
  2. 1 2 3 4 COWAN, MATT (14 April 2015). "BlaBlaCar has turned ride-sharing into a multi-million-euro business". Wired.
  3. ↑ Medeiros, Joao (29 July 2015). "The 2015 WIRED 100: Frédéric Mazzella (No. 49)". Wired.
  4. ↑ Chen, Liyan. "Meet Europe's Newest Unicorn: BlaBlaCar Raises $200 Million At $1.6 Billion Valuation". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-06-26.
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