Slava Rubin

Slava Rubin is the co-founder and former CEO of Indiegogo, the crowdfunding platform that democratized access to capital for creators and entrepreneurs worldwide. Launched in 2008, Indiegogo empowered anyone to raise money for any idea, challenging traditional finance gatekeepers.

Born in the former Soviet Union, Rubin immigrated to the U.S. as an infant and grew up in Pennsylvania. His father died of cancer when he was 15, an experience that later inspired Music Against Myeloma, a nonprofit he founded to fund myeloma research. He studied finance at the University of Pennsylvania and worked at J.P. Morgan in media and entertainment.

Rubin met Eric Schell and Denae Ringelmann at Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Convinced the internet could democratize funding, they launched Indiegogo with $30,000 of their own savings—each. The early years were brutal: 93 investor rejections, the 2008 financial crisis, and a three-year bootstrapped struggle before they could pay themselves. Their breakthrough came from organic user momentum on Twitter, proving demand before venture capital arrived.

Indiegogo raised $1.5 million in 2011 and $15 million in Series A in 2012. Rubin evolved from CEO to Chief Business Officer as the company professionalized, a transition he later described as painful—letting go of control while trusting a growing team. He remained an advocate for open access, resisting pressure to curate projects even as controversies arose.

After leaving day-to-day operations in 2018, Rubin started a venture fund and launched his own podcast. Indiegogo continued under new leadership until its 2025 acquisition by GameFound, a board-game crowdfunding platform backed by Ravensburger. Rubin's legacy is proving that ordinary people could fund extraordinary ideas without needing approval from a select few.