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Ben Lerer

Ben Lerer is a New York-based venture capitalist and media entrepreneur who serves as Managing Partner of Lerer Hippeau, an early-stage venture capital firm, and who previously built Thrillist into the digital media company Group Nine Media [1][2][3][4][6]. He founded Thrillist shortly after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in political science, having attended the Dalton School before college [13][14]. Lerer has described Thrillist's early years as a bootstrapped operation, raising only $1.8 million from Pilot Growth Equity Partners in 2005 and 2006 and deliberately avoiding marketing spend, choosing instead to grow through content that drove readers to take action at the restaurants, bars, and stores it covered [16]. He has resisted characterizing the company as an e-commerce business even after its 2010 acquisition of JackThreads came to generate more revenue than the media side, arguing that the distinction lies in treating readers and buyers as the same audience rather than valuing them only at the point of transaction [16].

Lerer's move into investing began informally alongside his father, Huffington Post co-founder Kenneth Lerer, who started that company the same year Ben launched Thrillist [20]. The two made small angel investments in companies such as Warby Parker and Birchbox before formalizing the practice, first raising an $8.5 million fund and later a $25 million fund, joined by Eric Hippeau after he left the Huffington Post, along with partner Jordan Cooper [20]. Lerer Hippeau's approach, in his description, has been to write early checks in the range of $150,000 to $250,000 across internet-based businesses without a fixed sector thesis, prioritizing people over categories, and the firm's portfolio has since included Casper, Allbirds, Warby Parker, BuzzFeed, Mirror, and Venmo [18][20]. He characterizes the firm's investing style as talent-driven rather than thesis-driven and says it operates across both consumer and enterprise categories [18].

After Thrillist scaled into the multi-brand company Group Nine Media, Lerer served as its chief executive from December 2016 until its acquisition by Vox Media in April 2022, after which he became a director and managing partner at Lerer Hippeau within Vox Media [7][8][11]. He has also served on the board of Casper from 2015 until the Vox Media transaction in 2022 [12]. Discussing the current fundraising climate, Lerer has argued that difficult periods for capital access tend to produce more disciplined, margin-focused companies, even as he acknowledges that many strong businesses outside of trending sectors such as AI are being overlooked by later-stage investors [18]. He has said that as a seed investor he increasingly finds himself re-engaging with companies from earlier vintages, sometimes eight to twelve years old, to push founders toward acquisitions or reinvention rather than waiting passively for market conditions to improve, framing his approach with the view that "companies get bought, not sold" [17].

Beyond his venture and media work, Lerer has held board or council positions with Robin Hood, RaisedBy.Us, and Urban Upbound [5][9][10]. He has attributed much of his professional approach to lessons learned from his father, particularly the idea that accomplished people are often improvising without a clear blueprint, a notion his father summarized to him as the belief that "everyone's a fraud" [19].

Experience

  1. Leadership Council
    Robin HoodMar 2025 to Present
  2. Managing Partner
    Lerer Hippeau2010 to Present
  3. Director
    Vox MediaApr 2022 to Present
  4. Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau
    Vox MediaMar 2022 to Present
  5. Board Member
    RaisedBy.UsMar 2016 to Present
  6. Board Member
    Urban UpboundSep 2010 to Present
  7. Chief Executive Officer
    Group Nine MediaDec 2016 to Apr 2022
  8. Board Member
    CasperJun 2015 to Apr 2022

Education

Media & appearances

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