Alexander Muse

Alexander Francis Muse (born November 2, 1972), in Virginia Beach, Virginia and raised in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and Katy, Texas, United States) is best known as the co-founder and CEO of ShopSavvy until he was fired for cause by the Board of Directors and later sued the company,^[1] the world's largest mobile shopping application.^[2] Currently he is co-founder and Chief Product Officer of ViewMarket.^[3] Previously he founded LayerOne, a venture backed startup subsequently sold to Equinix (Switch & Data).^[4] Muse is the son of Ralph Buckley Muse a successful United States business executive.^[5] He is also co-founder and Chairman of Architel, an managed cloud company based in Dallas, TX that is the focus of a lawsuit for breach of contract and debt.^[6] He is also a co-founder of Big in Japan, the company that built Fancast that was subsequently sold to Comcast Interactive.^[7] In 2005 Muse created a reality television series called MotorSport Ranch that initially aired on INHD and can currently be seen on VOOM.^[8][9] Muse maintains the popular weblog StartupMuse.^[10]

ViewMarket

Founded in 2014, ViewMarket is a collection of local digital lifestyle brands, including CultureMap and RSVP Calendar, leveraging various technologies to engage with more than 3 million users each month. Robert Bennett and Alexander Muse co-founded the company after raising approximately $1M in seed capital from prominent investors including 500 Startups and Silicon Valley Growth Syndicate. The company is currently generating more than $5M in annual run-rate revenue and is actively looking for additional digital properties to grow their footprint nationally.

The Company forfeited its Texas corporate charter pursuant to Section 171.309 of the Texas Tax Code on August 5, 2016.

The Company has been sued by a former employee and it set to go to trial in January 2017.

ShopSavvy

Founded in 2008, ShopSavvy was the winner of Google's Android Developer Challenge in that same year and was one of the first ten Android applications available to end users. ShopSavvy has been downloaded more than 40 million times and is the most popular shopping mobile shopping application on iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 . In 2011 ShopSavvy raised a $7M Series A investment led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin to expand the application's social shopping features. In 2014 the company was purchased by Purch for an undisclosed sum. Alexander Muse was terminated for cause by the Board of Directors and Investors. Alexander later filed suit against ShopSavvy and its investors. Muse v. ShopSavvy Inc., case number DC-13-00294, in the 192nd Judicial District Court of Dallas County, Texas.^[11]

LayerOne

Prior to founding LayerOne, Muse held various sales positions with ICG Communications (metropolitan fiber provider), BBN Planet (internet backbone provider) and Broadwing (long haul fiber provider).^[12] Realizing a need for each of these companies to connect to one another, Muse wrote a 300-page business plan detailing his concept for neutral interconnection points in each major city in the United States. Muse pioneered the concept of 'buy-side' interconnection, whereby carriers were encouraged to participate in 'pooling points' in major cities without upfront costs.^[13][14][15] Carriers who sold connectivity were charged a monthly recurring fee based on the capacity of the connection. Within three years the company provided interconnection services to every major and most minor telecommunications companies in the United States with the notable exception of Sprint.

Architel

In 2003 Muse left LayerOne to become CEO of Architel, an information technology services company he co-founded with Scott H. Ryan in 2001.^[16] Architel provides managed cloud services to medium and large sized businesses.. As with Muse's other companies, Architel became the subject of lawsuits for debt and breach of contract. This included being sued by the Dallas Cowboys.^[17]

Sumo Ventures

Like Alex Muse's other businesses, this one is also owned and funded by his father, Ralph Muse.^[18] And in keeping with the other businesses, will this one also be sued by employees, investors, and other companies? ^{[19][20][21][22][23]}

References

External links

• StartupMuse, Muse's blog, launched June 2005
• Muse Sued Again, Dallas Cowboys Sue Architel and Alex Muse
• Muse Sued Yet Again, Cowboys Sue Alex Muse
• Muse Sues, Alex Muse Sues
• Again, Muse is Sued, Pay by Touch Sues Alex Muse
• Muse is Fired, Muse Sues Board and Investors after being fired