Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (born July 17, 1982) is an Indian-American internet entrepreneur who founded several internet advertising companies.
Born to Punjabi immigrants, Chahal founded an advertising network at the age of 16 and became a millionaire after selling it to ValueClick at nearly $40 million. In 2004, he co-founded BlueLithium, which was sold to Yahoo in a $300 million deal. Chahal has since founded other internet-based companies including RadiumOne and Gravity4, and is currently the CEO of RedLotus. He had received significant acclaim in the entrepreneur industry, having been listed by the Business Insider in the "30 Founders Under 30" CEO category (2010) and winning the Ernst and Young entrepreneur of the year award in 2013.
Chahal has been convicted twice for domestic violence and battery crimes, in 2013 and 2016.[1][2][3] Although Chahal maintains innocence, he was compelled on both occasions to resign from the roles of CEO.[4]
Early life
Chahal was born to Avtar Singh and Arjinder Chahal, a nurse in Tarn Taran Sahib, a city in India’s Punjab state on July 17, 1982; he was the youngest of four children.[5] In 1985, during the aftermath of the Khalistani insurgency, his parents emigrated to the United States, his father having won a green card lottery.[6] Chahal emigrated the following year, at age four. The family lived in a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose, California.[7] His father got a job in the Postal Service; his mother worked as an assistant to a nurse.[6]
At age 16 Chahal dropped out of high school to pursue a career in Internet advertising. [8] He has said he was the subject of racially motivated bullying during his school years.[9][10][11][12] His family were devout followers of Sikhism.[6]
Career
Chahal started his career buying and reselling printers on eBay, after being turned away from a job at McDonald's.[13] His initial forays into business world were to support his family, and largely derived from his father's interests in stock-trading.[14][15]
In 1998, Chahal founded ClickAgents, an advertising network focused on performance-based advertising, on the lines of DoubleClick.[16] By 2000, it had numerous customers and had a staff-strength of 34.[17] It was acquired by ValueClick in November, 2000 in an all-stock deal valued at nearly $40 million, which made him an overnight millionaire.[18][19][17]
In 2002 Chahal along with his elder brother launched a restaurant Planet Bollywood, to cater to Indian movie stars flying into California.[20] However, it burned down soon and was not restarted.[2]
BlueLithium, RadiumOne
In 2004, after being rejected from The Apprentice, Chahal co-founded BlueLithium, a company that specialized in behavioral targeting, a technique whereby web users' habits online are tracked in order to show customized ads.[21][22] The ad-tech industry praised it with Business 2.0 noting it to be among the 11 most disruptive innovations of 2006,[23] and by the same year, it had expanded operations to foreign countries, having purchased AdRevolver.[24][25]MingleNow, a social network for rich people was simulatenously launched, which was accorded a partnership deal by Anheuser-Busch.[26] It was named among the top 100 private companies of America by AlwaysOn for three consecutive years[14] and in 2007, Yahoo! bought it for $300 million in cash; Chahal remained CEO during interim period.[27][28] It was the fifth largest ad-network in USA and second largest in UK, at time of sale.[29]
In 2009, Chahal founded RadiumOne, another online ad company[30][31] of a slightly different genre[32], which started as a loyalty and rewards program[33] but later, migrated to targeted-advertising domain, having acquiesced multiple social-media-centered startups.[34] It was valued at about 500 million USD at its peak and was purchased by RhythmOne in 2017 for 22 million USD.[35]
Gravity4
In July 2014, Chahal launched Gravity4 (since renamed to DaVinci Marketing Cloud).[36] It made a failed bid to buy back RadiumOne and closed in 2017, being unable to integrate the purchased ad-tech startups.[37][38][39][35]
RedLotus
In 2019, Chahal founded TaaraLabs, an incubator and RedLotus in Hong Kong, which specializes in AI-based targeted advertising.[40][41][9]
Honors and philanthropy
Chahal was included in Business Insider's "30 Founders Under 30" list in 2010; Bloomberg Businessweek named him among the 15 best young entrepreneurs of the year.[42] In 2012, Complex magazine put him in a list of the 25 richest entrepreneurs under the age of 30;[43] in the same year he received the Light of India Amrapali Young Achievers award.[44][45] In 2013, he was named as one of the Ernst and Young entrepreneurs of the year.[2][9] In 2019, Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee honored him for contributions made to the field of entrepreneurship.[46] Chahal has been a guest lecturer at several universities.[46][47][48]
In 2012, after the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting, he committed 1 million USD to found BeProud, a charitable foundation that supports the families of hate crime victims and to combat child trafficking in India.[49][50][9] He established an entrepreneurial scholarship program at Pace University.[51][52]
Chahal has attracted attention for his extravagant lifestyle including luxurious cars and a penthouse apartment[37][55]; he has been the guest over The Oprah Winfrey Show[56], The Secret Millionaire[57][58], and has been also featured in ExtraTV as America's most eligible bachelor.[14][9] He claims to be a devout Sikh[9] and takes a keen interest in Bollywood; admiring Shah Rukh Khan and A. R. Rahman in particular.[14] Chahal was a regular donor to Democrats, and has been twice invited to White House including for Christmas celebrations during Obama's presidency.[59][60]
He is a popular motivational speaker and has penned an autobiography The Dream, which was a bestseller.[9]
Domestic violence and battery conviction
In August 2013, the San Francisco District Attorney's Office charged Chahal with committing acts of domestic violence against his girlfriend; she did not co-operate with the prosecution.[61] Chahal proclaimed his innocence[62] but nevertheless plead guilty to one charge of domestic violence battery and one charge of battery.[63] He was sentenced to three years' probation, ordered to pay a fine, and compelled to undergo a 52-week domestic violence training course along with 25 hours of community service.[63] Subsequently, he was fired from his position as CEO of RadiumOne.[64]; Chahal has since alleged that his guilty plea was coerced by the board of RadiumOne.[65]
In 2016, the San Francisco County Superior Court found Chahal guilty of violating the rules of his September 2014 probation when he committed acts of domestic violence against a second woman. He was sentenced to one year in prison.[66] Chahal was again compelled to resign from his position as CEO of Gravity4.[37] California state appeals court upheld the verdict in April 2018[67], and he served six months in San Francisco County Jail.[68]
Publications
The Dream: How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions, Palgrave Macmillan (October 23, 2008) ISBN0-230-61095-1
^"ValueClick acquires Click Agents". AdvertisingAge. Crain Communications. November 3, 2000. Archived from the original on 2017-04-10. Retrieved 2017-04-09.((cite news)): CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
