Cort Javarone, Founder & CEO
Gameplay Partners
Cort Javarone, Founder of Gameplay Partners, is a seasoned company builder, developer and fund manager with 25 years experience in entertainment, digital/social, venture capital, and real estate.
In venture capital Mr. Javarone partnered with Blue Sand Securities to launch and co-manage Social MediaPartners I, II & III, a late-stage venture fund enabling investors to secure positions prior to IPOs of successful social media companies at institutional investor pricing. SMP closed $40 million in capital, purchased shares from early employees and founders of Facebook, and distributed shares and cash to investors post-IPO. In 2011 as a member of The Zynga Funds, Mr. Javarone’s sources provided approximately 40% of the Fund’s investment in pre-IPO stock of social games market leader Zynga. He was venture co-founder or principal for $148 million in capital funds invested in his past five projects.
In real estate, Mr. Javarone is known for making possible the conversion of one of New York City’s landmark mansions to its former glory. In 2007 Mr. Javarone co-founded Foresite Management, a townhouse developer in New York City, arranged $32 million in capital and acquired the 18,000SF Sloan Mansion for a partnership formed with hedge fund and private investors. The CPH Gilbert-designed, 36-foot wide limestone masterpiece, widely considered a “white elephant” with rent controlled tenants in place for over 30 years, was vacated in less than one year (without press) and converted to a single-family mansion, enabling Investors to refinance out at a valuation 2X the purchase price, $40 million, before renovation. After expanding to Los Angeles in 2009, Cort joined as partner and helped establish Klean Centers, a Los Angeles based Behavioral Health Treatment Center with four building compound and 42 treatment beds, for which he secured a 20-year non-recourse lease, then architected a roll-up model, and arranged an $11 million cash flow acquisition with full leveraged buyout financing.
A digital video pioneer from the early days of the Internet, from 1998–2005 Cort Javarone launched and ran DIG VIDEO Inc. & Free Media LLC, a broadband music video network and 800,000 circulation alternative media distributed in 4,000 locations nationwide, which claimed every major and significant independent record label as clients, as well as sponsors like Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, AOL and Yahoo. In 2006 Cort Javarone executive produced “Live From the Seminole Hard Rock”, the #1-rated program distributed by American Public Television on PBS at the time, and subsequently financed the production company launched by Gene Kirkwood, the Oscar-winning producer of “Rocky” and other iconic films.
Cort was awarded Master of International Finance from The London School of Economics and Political Science in 1989, and Bachelor of Arts, Economics, George Washington University in 1988.