Maveron was founded in 1998 by Dan Levitan, a former investment banker who took Starbucks public in 1992, and Howard Schultz, the Starbucks CEO he met on that deal. The firm has stayed unusually disciplined about a single idea ever since: investing only in consumer-facing brands and technology, never enterprise or infrastructure. That focus produced one of the largest single outcomes in Seattle venture history - Levitan led Zulily's roughly $5 million Series A in 2009, and Maveron's 22% stake was worth more than $1 billion when the ecommerce company went public on the Nasdaq in 2013 at a $4.6 billion valuation, alongside the same-year IPO of sandwich chain Potbelly.
Zulily's 2013 Nasdaq IPO - Maveron led the ecommerce company's Series A with roughly $5 million and held a 22% stake worth more than $1 billion at IPO, on a $4.6 billion valuation