Matt Rockman is an Australian investor and tech entrepreneur, currently living in Los Los Angeles
Background
Matthew Rockman was born in Melbourne on January 1968. His father Irvin Peter Rockman Commander of the Order of the British Empire (6 April 1938 – 30 August 2010) was a well known Australian businessman, and the Lord Mayor of Melbourne. His Mother Yvonne Rowe was a well known model and restaurateur.
Rockman"s grandfather had fled Poland due to anti-Jewish persecution, as had his mother"s family, from the Ukraine.
Education
Matt Rockman attended Wesley College in Melbourne and graduated from Monash University with a degree in Business (Banking & Finance) Also in 2014 Matt was awarded an adjunct professorship by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology school of business.
Career
One of the three original founders of SEEK Limited, alongside Paul and Andrew Bassat, Matt took SEEK from a business plan to become one of Australia"s most successful online businesses. SEEK is an ASX Top 100 Listed company with a market capitalisation of $4 Billion, and with businesses in the United Kingdom, China, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia. He has one brother, Ned Rockman.
They settled in Melbourne, where Norman Rockman established a chain of clothing stores, which operated under the family name.
Matt Rockman is married and has two children. Matt Rockman started his career in real estate at firms including CBRE Group before joining in the family business, Northrock Group.
He worked in sales & marketing for seven years before founding Seek Communications with brothers Paul & Andrew Bassat in 1997. SEEK
The idea for Seek came about when in March 1997, Paul Bassat, then a lawyer and trying to buy his first house, was frustrated with newspaper classifieds.
Rockman was in charge of Sales & Marketing at Seek.
Irvin Rockman was a seed investor in Seek. In August 2003, Kerry Packer bought a 25% stake in Seek valuing the company at over $132m. Other shareholders at this time included Yahoo!, the Liberman and Besen families and several venture capital funds.
Matt Rockman exited from the seek.com in 2005 to pursue new professional challenges and spend more time with his young family.
He said he would remain a long term shareholder in the company. Rockman"s held 11 million shares in Seek worth over $40m when he announced his departure.
James Packer said about Rockman "Matthew"s persistence knocking on doors to kick-start Seek"s fledging business in its earliest days is part of the company"s history," Matt Rockman joined software company Nitro Postdoctoral fellows in 2007 as the company chairman. Although he invested in over 10 tech start-ups after Seek, this was his first hands-on role.
Matt Rockman is also a keynote speaker at ICMI and Saxton.
Matt Rockman currently works at Square Peg Capital, and is an investor in venture businesses.