Lingham, Vinny
Founder and CEO, Civic Technologies, Inc.
Vinny Lingham is a well recognized Internet entrepreneur who is currently the cofounder & CEO of Civic Technologies, Inc a startup company that has a goal to eliminate new account fraud and prevent identity theft by creating an "Identity Network” where consumers can confirm their identity in realtime with participating merchants and vendors. He recently raised $2.75 million in venture funding led by notable investor Social Leverage. Prior to Civic, he was the cofounder and CEO of Gyft a mobile gift card company founded in 2012 and backed by Google Ventures. Gyft quickly become the leading player in the space and was acquired by global payments giant, First Data Corporation in 2014, for over $50m. Vinny previously founded & ran Yola.com, Clicks2Customers and incuBeta.
Vinny is also the cofounder of SiliconCape.com, an NGO based in South Africa that aims to turn Cape Town into a technology hub. Vinny is an active technology investor primarily in Silicon Valley. He also partnered with one of his previous cofounders to establish an investment fund in South Africa, called Newtown Partners, where he has led early stage investments into successful and notable startups such as Sweep South, in South Africa.
He has also appeared as a Dragon on the South African edition of Dragon’s Den, the longest running UK investment reality show (sister show to Shark Tank), a reality television program where entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas in order to secure investment finance from a panel of venture capitalists. He is a coauthor alongside his coinvestors from the show, of “I’m In: Essential Advice for Entrepreneurs.”
Vinny now lives in Silicon Valley with his wife and two sons.