Primary Job Title Managing Partner Primary Organization 
BIG Ventures
Location Los Angeles, California, United States Regions Greater Los Angeles Area, West Coast, Western US Gender Male
Investor Type Investor Stage Number of Exits
Facebook View on Facebook LinkedIn View on LinkedIn X (Twitter) View on X
Brendan Iribe is the CEO of Sesame. Brendan Iribe is one of the video game industry’s most successful entrepreneurs. He was the CEO and co-founder of Oculus VR, the Irvine-based developer of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Oculus VR recently made worldwide headlines when on March 26, 2014, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) announced that it was
acquiring Oculus VR in a deal worth approximately $3 billion. The two companies are joining forces to create the best virtual reality platform in the world.
In 2012, Brendan and his team launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of Oculus Rift development kit. With the support of 9,522 backers, they exceeded their original goal of $250,000 and ended up raising over $2.4 million. The campaign remains one of the top 20 most-funded campaigns in Kickstarter history.
Before Oculus, Brendan served as Chief Product Officer of Gaikai, another innovative Orange County success story. In July of 2012, Sony Computer Entertainment (NYSE: SNE) acquired Gaikai for $380m.
Prior to Gaikai, Brendan spent a decade as co-founder and CEO of Scaleform, the #1 user interface technology provider in the video game market, which Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) acquired in 2011. Earlier in his career, Brendan worked as a game programmer and helped the Firaxis team develop the user interface for Civilization IV, a game that went on to sell millions of units and win multiple awards.
