Throughout these decades of experience as founders, investors, operators, and executives, our team has developed an exceptionally deep and broad network. These relationships include our positions as LPs at over a dozen leading and emerging venture capital firms and our own LP base, which includes institutional investors, influential high-net-worth families, and accomplished entrepreneurs. Mr. Yagan has a strong reputation among public company investors from his time at IAC and Match Group. Mr. Yagan, through both Match Group’s initial public offering and ShopRunner’s recent exit, and Mr. Schwarz, through his experience in investment banking at UBS and corporate development at Kaplan, also maintain strong relationships with investment banks. Collectively, our deep, long-standing relationships with founders, investors, operators, and executives in and around our target industries will amplify our ability to source targets, conduct diligence, execute our initial business combination, and help drive continued growth and public market enthusiasm thereafter.
We have thought deeply about the value we would bring to a potential business combination target, beyond our general experience as investors, expertise as operators, and strong network. Our attention to culture and environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) factors and our ability to help drive both organic and inorganic growth will make us attractive to potential targets and differentiate us from other potential acquirers.
First, we value the importance of culture, philosophical leadership alignment, and collaborative mentorship in the boardroom. Under Mr. Yagan’s leadership, ShopRunner earned recognition as a “best place to work” in Chicago and for its leadership on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. As investors and board members, our management team has developed extraordinary, trusted relationships with CEOs of high-growth, pre-public technology companies, who have perspectives similar to the leaders of our likely potential business combination targets.
Second, we have successfully grown businesses organically through a variety of strategies. At SparkNotes, we executed a strategy of content creation and business model innovation (ad-supported publishing) to wrest market leadership from the long-time category leader. At OkCupid, we executed a strategy of content marketing (our OkTrends blog) and business model innovation (freemium) to earn recognition as one of the most relevant dating brands in America. At Match, we executed a strategy of brand evolution and product transformation to move from a desktop and web-based business to a mobile and app-based business. At Tinder, we created an industry-defining global brand and reimagined OkCupid’s freemium business model innovations to create tens of billions of dollars in market value. On our boards and in service to our portfolio CEOs, we have rolled up our sleeves to help transform business models, enhance distribution channels, create new pricing strategies, navigate the pandemic, and optimize cap tables and balance sheets, all in the name of supporting management and driving growth.
Third, we have deep expertise in using inorganic strategies to drive growth. At Match Group, we acquired the market-leading dating businesses in Japan, Germany, Canada, and Europe to expand our core dating vertical as well as The Princeton Review to expand into an adjacent vertical. At ShopRunner, we made two acquisitions, including one that we repurposed from a consumer-facing business to a business-to-business platform, generating meaningful enterprise value. During Mr. Farsht’s nine-year tenure at Norwest Equity Partners, his platform companies completed nine add-on acquisitions to achieve strategic objectives and financial growth. At Kaplan, Mr. Schwarz executed multiple acquisitions to provide entrance into new markets and to bolster Kaplan’s technology offerings.
Fourth, we value having a positive impact on the world. We plan to use ESG screens in the selection of any potential business combination target and we will integrate ESG factors into our investment analysis and decision-making processes. Given our digital focus, we expect the social and governance factors to take priority and we will look to identify products that positively impact society or companies that have committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. After executing our initial business combination, we plan to acknowledge, manage and report on financially material ESG factors, believing that positive ESG performance will enhance our success through both risk mitigation and value creation. Our strong ESG proposition will differentiate us from other partners while making us more attractive to the management, employees, and customers of potential business combination targets.
Our management team has a unique depth and breadth of operational expertise, which management teams at potential targets will regard with credibility and respect. We will represent an empathetic, operationally-focused, and strategic partner with whom they can collaborate in creating significant long-term shareholder value as a public company. Once we complete our initial business combination, we expect to make an immediate impact as board members by partnering with management to assess opportunities to enhance performance through talent augmentation, executional improvements, and organic and inorganic growth strategies.