Hasan Sukkar, the founding father of AI startup 11x, is stepping down from his position as CEO, Sukkar introduced on LinkedIn this morning. Prabhav Jain, 11x’s CTO, has been named the corporate’s new CEO.
Sukkar will transfer right into a “non-executive chairman” place, the place he’ll work with Jain on “strategic route, product imaginative and prescient, trade relationships, and opening new market alternatives,” Sukkar wrote on LinkedIn, serving to 11x in any manner he can “into the long run.”
“I’ve spent loads of time fascinated by what it takes to go from a quick rising startup to an everlasting enterprise grade scale-up, and I’ve realised that I really like constructing from the bottom up. It’s in my bones,” Sukkar wrote on LinkedIn. “I really like 11x and imagine in our mission deeply. We now have an enormous alternative forward. However typically, loving your organization means realizing when to move the CEO baton for the subsequent leg of the race.”
As Trendster beforehand reported in March, 11x at the moment had been displaying off buyer logos on its web site of firms that weren’t energetic prospects, and a type of firms was threatening to sue over the matter. Different sources additionally instructed Trendster that the 11x product had points and the corporate had struggled with buyer retention. Some workers additionally described the startup as a grueling place to work.
11x has raised greater than $70 million from traders, together with a $24 million Sequence A led by Sarah Tavel, a longtime investor with Benchmark, and a $50 million Sequence B led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Joe Schmidt, the a16z companion a part of the 11x deal, publicly doubled down on his help for the corporate and its CEO, posting on X in March that the agency beloved “Hasan and the complete group at 11x,” and that the “group, product, and metrics are world class.”
Tavel additionally posted on X saying, “As a board member, I’ve seen the progress up shut, and our conviction within the group and the chance is stronger than ever.” Final week, Tavel, who joined Benchmark as a common companion in 2017, additionally introduced she can be taking over the place of enterprise companion, a extra restricted position on the storied agency.
Techcrunch occasion
Berkeley, CA
|
June 5
BOOK NOW
A spokesperson for 11x despatched a prolonged e-mail explaining that the change was supposed to place the fitting particular person within the CEO position for a brand new progress part of the corporate.
“Present CTO, fmr. Brex exec and 3-time founder Prabhav Jain is moving into the CEO position, with Hasan Sukkar transitioning into a brand new position as Non-Govt Chairman,” the 11x spokesperson wrote. “The transfer displays 11x’s progress: Over the past yr, the corporate has advanced from a single product, single use-case firm to a platform that powers a whole bunch of the world’s main GTM groups.”
Benchmark and a16z didn’t instantly reply to a request for added remark.
Charles Rollet contributed reporting.
