• Source: Alex Hofmann (executive)

Alex Hofmann is a German-American entrepreneur and investor best known as the former president of musical.ly, as well as the founder of the technology company 9count, the parent company of notable social media apps like Summer (formerly Spark) and Wink.




Background


Hofmann was born and grew up in Germany. Hofmann worked at the enterprise software company SAP, where he held the position of director of marketing and product management in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In May 2015, Hofmann joined Musical.ly as the first president of North America, and during his tenure at Musical.ly the global user base grew to over 215 million by the end of May 2017, and became a popular social video network among Gen Z users.
On November 10, 2017, musical.ly was acquired by ByteDance for as much as $1 billion, and merged it later into TikTok on August 2, 2018. On January 8, 2018, Hofmann made a post on his LinkedIn profile announcing that he was stepping down from his position as the president of musical.ly.




= 9count

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In 2019, Hofmann along with Joe Viola co-founded 9count, a technology company based in Marina del Rey, California. Since its inception, 9count launched several social apps such as dating apps Summer (formerly Spark), Wink, and Popstream, Juju, and Everland.
In September 2022, it was announced that 9count had raised $6 million in a fundraising round. As of May 2022, 9count has raised a total of $21.5 million which increased to $27.5 million in funding by September 2022 from investors including Crosscut, GGV Capital Redpoint, Signia, Greycroft, Progression, I2BF and Waverley Capital. In 2023, 9count was recognized as one of the top 50 startups globally by The Information.




Awards and recognition


Hofmann was recognized in Billboard's 2017 Digital Power Players list, acknowledging his influence in the music and tech industries. In the same year, Hofmann received the WSJ Innovator Award for his contributions to innovation in social media.




References

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Alex Hofmann (executive)
• List of entrepreneurs
• Hoffman
• Philip Seymour Hoffman
• How to Change Your Mind (miniseries)
• Billy Beane
• Ripley (TV series)
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• Otto Group
• Beggars and Choosers (TV series)