| Website | wanderful.com/man... |
| Blog | btsiv.com |
| @bentsmithfour | |
| Birthplace | Fairhope, AL |
| Carnegie Mellon University - Tepper School of Business, MSIA/MBA | 1993 |
| Strategy, Technology | |
| University of California, Davis, BSME | 1991 |
| Mechanical Engineering |
Ben T. Smith IV is the CEO of Wanderful Media, a local discovery shopping company backed by 12 of the largest US media companies. Ben is also a Venture Partner at Accelerator Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm that invests in early stage technology companies. Accelerator Ventures works with talented entrepreneurs to create the next generation of great companies.
Ben joined ShopCo recently to lead its efforts to grow and serve the audiences of 12 major media companies with local discovery shopping solutions.
Ben, was the past President of Reply! Media. Reply!, Inc. is a high growth profitable company that manages a series of local internet properties and provides leads to local businesses. Ben sold a profitable MerchantCircle to Reply! for a significant return in 2011.
As Co-Founder of MerchantCircle, Ben built the largest network of local businesses on the web and one of the fastest growing local advertising networks. Ben incubated MerchantCircle, as an EIR at Rustic Canyon, where he was focused on helping to finance and create companies in new media and software.
In addition to being the SVP of Corporate Development at Borland through 4 acquisitions. Ben was the original CEO of CodeGear for which he led the separation and startup.
Earlier, Ben co-founded Spoke with USVP and a couple great entrepreneurs in 2002. He guided Spoke to its 50th customer and through 3 rounds of successfully higher financing valuations while establishing a new category with his name on key social patents. Ben remains on the board of Spoke.
Prior to joining Spoke, Ben served the White House as the Senior Advisor for Strategy and Planning, to the Secretary of Transportation for the period of creating the Transportation Security Administration after 9-11. Prior to this, Ben was a Vice President in EDS’s A.T. Kearney management consulting subsidiary, leading the West Coast operations of the Kearney/EDS Venture Development Group. He has advised large leading technology companies on business and marketing strategies. As the one of the youngest partners in the history of Kearney, he was recognized by Consulting News as one of the top 25 consultants in the world in 2002. Ben has also been interim SVP of Sales and Marketing for a $150M logistics services company and interim CEO of a 60-person Upside 100 software company.
| Company | Date | Round | Size | Participants |
| Well | 3/12 | Venture Round | $1M | 9 |
| Coveroo | 8/09 | Series A | $1.5M | 5 |
| RateItAll | 6/08 | Series A | $1.4M | 9 |
