Michael Serbinis | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 28, 1973 |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | Queen’s University & University of Toronto |
| Occupation | President & CEO of Kobo Inc. |
| Board member of | Round 13 Capital, Ontario Science Centre, Young Presidents’ Organization, OMERS Ventures, benourished, Xtreme Startups |
Michael Serbinis is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kobo Inc. , a global eReading company that was founded in December 2009 as a spinoff from Canadian bookseller Indigo. In January 2012, Serbinis led the sale of Kobo, sold to Japanese Internet company Rakuten for $315M.
Prior to founding Kobo, Serbinis developed Internet routing technology at Microsoft, search engine technology at Zip2 (sold to Altavista for $300M), and in 2000, founded and sold DocSpace for $568M in 2000 to Critical Path.
Serbinis has an interest in science and technology and designed a high temperature superconductor propulsion system that won Gold at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and subsequently led him to work with NASA, Rockwell Aerospace and Intel.
Serbinis is currently a member of the Founder's Board at Round 13 Capital, Board of Trustees at the Ontario Science Centre, and is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization. More recently he joined the OMERS Ventures advisory board to support entrepreneurs build their companies, including benourished, a juice, raw food & cleanse company.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University and a Masters of Science in Financial Engineering from the University of Toronto.
References
edit- "Kobo CEO Mike Serbinis talks tablets, Rakutan and more". Canadian Business. 6 September 2012.
- "Did Indigo Build Kobo, or Did Entrepreneur Mike Serbinis?". Tech Vibes. 9 November 2011.
- "$315-million Kobo takeover deal a windfall for Indigo". The Global and Mail. 8 November 2011.
- "From Pinterest to Kobo, how Japan's Rakuten is building a global internet giant". Wired Magazine. 22 August 2012.
- "Ken Nickerson, Michael Serbinis, and Steven Woods Join OMERS Ventures Advisory Board". OMERS Venture. 5 February 2013.
- "SPOTLIGHT ON SCIENCE LEARNING: A benchmark of Canadian talent". Let's Talk Science.