# Sib Mahapatra

> Sib Mahapatra is the co-founder and chief product officer of Branch, a venture-backed company that makes office furniture, work products and ergonomic tools for people and teams. He invests in early-stage startups personally and as a scout for Bain Capital Ventures, teaches a course at Yale called Becoming A Founder, and writes. He lives in New York City.

## Branch

- Co-founded Branch with Greg Hayes and Verity Sylvester in fall 2018; launched in early 2019 as a proptech startup furnishing offices, then became a direct-to-consumer brand during COVID.
- Leads growth marketing, digital products and connected products: ecommerce site, B2B platform, mobile app for end users.
- Branch: No. 73 on Inc.'s list of America's fastest-growing companies (2023); $250M in cumulative revenue; half a million customers across the US and Canada; $15M in venture capital raised; products recommended by Wirecutter, Consumer Reports, WIRED and Fast Company.
- Sib Mahapatra was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
- [Forbes on Branch](https://web.archive.org/web/20260423024719/https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickdaso/2020/04/25/new-and-growing-startups-use-branch-to-furnish-their-ideal-workspace/)
- [TechCrunch on Branch](https://web.archive.org/web/20260423024719/https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/11/covid-19-nearly-killed-this-office-furniture-startup-turning-to-home-offices-may-save-it/)

## Investing

- Invests as early as possible in commerce and martech, proptech, and select consumer brands, plus friends' companies.
- Investments include Highbeam, Upscale, Heavi.ai, Intelligems, Fermat, Workmagic, Clerq, DayZero, Boom Pay, Inspectify, Tin Can, Rose, Spark, Inherent, Every, Spara, Fonzi and UnitZero.ai.

## Selected writing

- [How B2B Startups Decrease Inequality](https://web.archive.org/web/20260210152357/https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/how-business-to-business-startups-reduce-inequality/): TechCrunch, January 2019
- [Redfin, Opendoor, Zillow and the Great iBuyer Game](https://web.archive.org/web/20260210152357/http://www.sibmahapatra.com/redfin-opendoor-zillow-and-the-great-ibuyer-game/): July 2018
- [VR, Presence, and the Case of the Missing Killer App](https://web.archive.org/web/20260210152357/https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/17/vr-presence-and-the-case-of-the-missing-killer-app/): TechCrunch, March 2018
- [Investing In Augmented Reality](https://web.archive.org/web/20260210152357/https://medium.com/@NotationCapital/notation-ar-and-sib-mahapatra-789ef7d314ae): Notation Capital, January 2018
- [The Bull Case for Snapchat](https://web.archive.org/web/20260210152357/https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/17/the-bull-case-for-snapchat/): TechCrunch, February 2017
- [Inside Opendoor: What 2 Years of Transaction Data Say About Their Prospects](https://web.archive.org/web/20260210152357/https://medium.com/@sibjeet/inside-opendoor-what-two-years-of-transactions-say-about-their-prospects-73a0a2d5b49): Inman News, December 2016; cited in The New York Times

## Background

- Teaches Becoming A Founder at Yale, a course on finding and following intrinsic motivations.
- Venture Fellow at Notation Capital (2018), researching frontier tech.
- Co-founded Recess Labs (2017), an NYC community for technologists; partnered with Grand Central Tech; incubated Vowel and Main Street.
- First hire on the New Ventures team at Redfin (2013–2016): partnerships, corporate development, the Walk Score acquisition, the first business plan for Redfin Now.
- BA in Ethics, Politics and Economics, Yale University; interned for three years with David Swensen's team at the Yale Endowment.

## Links

- [Website](https://yourname.com/)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yourhandle/)
- [X](https://x.com/yourhandle)