Brent Freeman
Stealth Venture Labs
Founder & President
Brent Freeman is a serial entrepreneur who’s passionate about using business to generate both profit and social impact. While finishing his undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California, Brent started a commodities import / export firm with offices in Dubai and Los Angeles where the sole premise was to make as much money as fast as possible to pay back $250k in student loan debt. He naively thought that chasing the money would bring him the happiness he was seeking -- so he chased this dream vigorously. At the aged of 23, he closed a $10M deal and on paper was a millionaire -- but the day after closing this large deal, in his heart he felt more empty than he had ever felt before. He realized that day that his entrepreneurial spirit was not rooted in making money for its own sake, but rather in using business to make a positive impact in the world. When the Global Financial Crisis hit, the millions disappeared overnight and Brent had the opportunity to “fail forward”, shut down his first business and dedicate himself to a passion that has lit him up ever since: using for-profit businesses to create real social impact in the world.
In 2009, Brent founded tech startup Roozt.com (pronounced “roo-st”) with a vision of connecting the millennial shopper with socially conscious brands online. Roozt researched each brand’s socially conscious business practices and then marketed the brands to online shoppers. Mashable labeled Roozt the “Etsy for Social Entrepreneurs” and as one of the pioneering advertisers on Facebook, Roozt grew into an industry leading, seven figure revenue platform with a community of over 250k people. For every member who joined, Roozt donated a meal to an Americans in need. One member, one meal. Roozt were recognized by Forbes as a “2011 Name You Need To Know” and was featured on The Today Show, INC.com, Mashable, Huffington Post, PandoDaily, NBC, and ABC. In 2012, at the age of 27, Brent was featured by the Los Angeles Business Journal as a “Top 20 in Their 20s” for the Greater Los Angeles area. Brent has been a public speaker all over the country on topics like social impact, entrepreneurship and startup life, including a TEDx on social enterprise, and has been a writer at both Entrepreneur and INC on similar topics. Roozt was acquired by National Geographic partnered Novica.com in 2014. After Roozt, Brent joined the venture capital firm Crosscut Ventures as Entrepreneur in Residence and Venture Partner where he helped vet & source consumer internet deals while advising their portfolio companies on digital marketing.
In late 2014, Brent founded Stealth Venture Labs with the vision of creating a turnkey, world class digital marketing agency that could help incubate and accelerate ecommerce brands in a faster and more cost effective manner than they ever could do themselves. One of their more notable projects was YogaClub, a women’s athleisure-wear subscription box that donated a yoga class to children in need with every box sold. This concept was conceived and incubated at Stealth Venture Labs and then spun out into it’s own entity and management team and has since raised over $2M in funding. During his tenure with YogaClub, they were able to provide over 150,000 yoga and meditation classes to children in need. These days Stealth Venture Labs continues to execute in the weeds alongside founders, executives and their teams to help scale brands online and currently manages over $1MM+ per month in media spend across multiple platforms, channels and verticals. Since inception, Stealth has generated over $300MM in recurring revenue for its brand partners, including brands like Evite, Home Chef, Factor75, PooPourri, FabKids, Rhone and many more.
Stealth Venture Labs is a remote-first organization by design, eliminating over 300 hours of commute time per team member each year while letting them reinvest those hours back into themselves and their families by working from home. Stealth attracts some of the best and most experienced digital marketing talent from organizations like Facebook, Uber, Thrive Market, and TechStyle (JustFab + Fabletics) and pays for 100% of health, vision and dental insurance for all team members and their families. With a progressive profit and equity sharing program, Brent has set up Stealth so that everyone shares in the dynamic upside of the company.
In 2018, Brent and his team launched the Stealth Venture Labs 501(c)3 Microfinance Fund that provides $1,000 - $10,000 startup loans to traditionally “unlendable" inner-city teenage entrepreneurs in the US from disadvantaged backgrounds. Based on the Grameen Bank’s “accountability, mutual trust, creativity and participation” underwriting model, these micro loans are aimed at helping low-income teenagers break the cycle of poverty using entrepreneurship as their vehicle. Additionally, Brent is the Chairman of the Board of the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship (501(c)3) in the San Francisco Bay Area, is an active member of Entrepreneur Organization (EO) San Francisco, the Summit Series Fellows Program, and is an Advisor to social enterprise startups Pledgeling.com and GVNG.org. Every year, Brent mentors a handful entrepreneurs in a one-on-one capacity to help them break through barriers and achieve the life they imagined. Brent lives in San Francisco, travels the world often and due to his love for everything Italian, will fly to Italy any chance he can get.