Indiegogo has hired Yelp executive Victor Kovalev as vice president of engineering, placing him in charge of a growing and critical part of the crowdfunding service.
Kovalev will expand the team of engineers needed at a time of constant growth. Indiegogo now handles several hundred thousand campaigns at once, and operates in more than 70 countries.
He will also help with the company’s ongoing efforts in areas like personalization (an Indiegogo homepage catered to each user) and mobile. Indiegogo raised $40 million in January, and Ringelmann told TheWrap the company would use that money to expand overseas and mobile while improving its product and how people pay.
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“My experience and passion lie in building engineering-driven cultures that foster radical innovation,” Kovalev said in a statement. “That’s why I’m excited to be joining an organization that is equally dedicated to embracing this spirit while leading the industry in making funding more accessible and campaigns more successful than ever before.”
Kovalev has joined the leadership team of the company, which is run by co-founders Slava Rubin, Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell. They have been building out their core of top executives throughout the year, promoting international chief Liz Wald and marketing communications chief Shannon Swallow to the vice president level last month.
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The full leadership team also includes operations SVP David Mandelbrot, sales and marketing VP Jerry Needel, finance and accounting VP Sinohe Terrero and general counsel Tim French.
“Since January 2008, we have been focused on recruiting the best and brightest to join our team to help drive our vision of democratizing funding worldwide,” Rubin, Indiegogo’s CEO, said in a statement “I’m honored to continue working alongside this talented leadership team, that not only has the experience and capabilities to fuel Indiegogo’s expansion, but also reflects our mission-driven culture and values.”