Travis May is the CEO of Shaper Capital, a company that partners with exceptional founders to create businesses that solve data fragmentation challenges across industries.
Travis has a proven track record as a serial entrepreneur, having previously led the two biggest data exits of the last 20 years as co-founder and CEO of both LiveRamp and Datavant. Travis scaled LiveRamp, which pioneered data onboarding, to more than $200 million in revenue; it is now a publicly traded company (NYSE: RAMP). He then founded Datavant, the leading platform for healthcare data interoperability, which merged with Ciox Health in a $7 billion transaction.
Shaper’s model is to co-found data businesses that apply the lessons and playbooks from the LiveRamp and Datavant journeys. Travis is co-founder and board chair of Protege, Arbital Health, Fractional AI, Adelphi, Zenith Health, and Catena.
Travis received AB degrees from Harvard University magna cum laude with Phi Beta Kappa honors.
1.) What is in your pockets?
In one pocket I’ve got my phone. In my other pocket, I’ve got a few stickers that my kids gave me.
2.) What exciting thing has happened recently to you or your organization?
Shaper is a business that co-founds data companies. Before this, I co-founded what are probably two of the biggest data companies over the last 20 years: LiveRamp and Datavant. Shaper’s goals are to try and replicate the playbooks that I used to build those two companies as well as co-found significant additional businesses.
We’re about two years in with Shaper, and we’re starting to see a range of early- and late-stage organizations. We just incorporated a new company last week, which is always fun, and we’re in total brainstorm and whitespace mode—imagining all that it can lead to.
At the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got a couple companies that have started to become very real businesses. One just did its first eight-figure commercial deal, and another just did a $30 million Series B fundraise. It’s both fun and exciting to participate in the range of their different stages.
3.) What is your favorite coffee spot?
I’m a fan of La Farm, an authentic French bakery in Cary, NC.
4.) What keeps you up at night?
Kids! I have three under age six, including one seven-month old.
The biggest challenge in company- building is finding, growing, and retaining the right talent. I spend at least 50% of my time thinking about talent-related issues and how to get the best people in the world to come and work across the Shaper portfolio.
5.) What is your favorite restaurant or happy hour?
I like breakfast at Heron’s. Also in Cary, it’s located in the Umstead Hotel and Spa.
6.) What is next for you or your organization?
Our goal with Shaper is to build 50 world-changing, Unicorn-style businesses over the next decade or so. That means doubling down over the next year or two on our batch of startups and partner with the companies to help ensure that they are successful. From there, it’s about how we scale.
