Ray King has launched four startups and enjoys the technical and business challenges of developing and fostering totally new ideas with the potential to change the way the world interacts with technology.

 

Ray’s first company was started with a childhood friend while still in high school. A services business, Ray and his partner recognized the growing impact of personal computing and decided to train students to use both Apple and IBM computers. The Computer Workshop was an immediate success garnering attention from The New York Times and a national television news program.

 

Using The Computer Workshop as a springboard, Ray enrolled at MIT with an eye on technology and entrepreneurship. Out of what began as a project management software solution for his father's architecture firm, Ray developed his second successful business called Semaphore. In 1990, Architecture Magazine rated Semaphore Inc. the No. 1 company in its space. When Semaphore was acquired by Deltek Inc. in 2000, the company had 2,500 customers and employed 100 people.

 

Ray moved to Portland, Oregon from New York City in 2000 to co-found his third company,  SnapNames Inc. Taking advantage of swelling interest in consumer generated web content, this company focused on inventing new ways for people to acquire and manage their own domain names. SnapNames grew to more than $49 million in annual revenue by 2006 and was acquired by Oversee.net in 2007.

 

AboutUs Inc., Ray’s current venture, is a website with profile information and tools for website owners which help their sites become more visible on the web so that they can gain more customers. The site receives more than 3 Million unique visitors per month and will be releasing a paid version of its tools early in 2011.

 

Ray embodies the key characteristics that we at Voyager look for when deciding to invest—experience building great teams and proven track record of entrepreneurial success.