GARRETT CAMP

1978–

Canadian tech pioneer Garrett Camp founded the on-demand car service Uber to solve the cost and timing issues of using taxis. A serial innovator, he also developed the web-exploring tool StumbleUpon and Expa, a platform to help entrepreneurs start up new companies.

Born to entrepreneurial parents who had established a successful home-building business, Garrett Camp launched his first company while still a student. In 2002, while studying for a master’s degree in software engineering at Calgary University, he set up the “discovery engine” StumbleUpon. Designed to help people find websites that were more targeted to their interests, the company attracted investment from Silicon Valley. Relocating to San Francisco in 2006, Camp sold the business to eBay the following year.

In 2008, he came up with an idea for an app that would save his friends’ time when traveling across town. This developed into Uber. Launched by Camp and fellow businessman Travis Kalanick in 2009 with just a few cars, Uber quickly expanded across the US and then globally. By 2019, more than 100 million people were using the Uber app to book on-demand taxi services from drivers using their own cars. With experience of his own start-ups to share, and continually looking for new ideas, Camp founded Expa in 2013, an enterprise to assist entrepreneurs in launching new businesses.

Camp acquired JUMP bikes in 2018 to provide bicycles and scooters for rent via the Uber app.