About UpDown

Michael Reich is the Chief Executive Officer of UpDown, the leading social platform for virtual investing. As CEO, Michael oversees sales, marketing, and development of the company’s investment strategies.

Michael is an accomplished Internet entrepreneur whose vision and expertise in business performance has propelled his success in the hi-tech and investment management sectors.

In 2002, Michael was one of four owners and managing directors at German IT consulting firm Spirit Link GmbH. During his tenure at the company, Michael was responsible for significantly building Spirit Link’s marketing and sales initiatives, helping the company to grow to 70 people in four years. Clients included world name brands such as Siemens, Novartis and Roche.

Prior to joining Spirit Link Michael served as an associate at Boston Consulting Group, where he provided business strategy expertise to clients in the enterprise software sector.

Michael is an MBA candidate at the Harvard Business School and holds BA degrees in Business Administration from the University of Reutlingen in Germany and The Reims Management School in France. Michael was co-founder of the Internet Association at The Reims Management School and he served as a member of the student board at The University of Reutlingen.

Georg is a co-founder and oversees Product Management activities at UpDown.

Mr. Ludviksson is an MBA candidate at the Harvard Business School and holds a BS degree in software engineering from the University of Iceland.

Mr. Ludviksson has over seven years of experience as an IT entrepreneur. In 1998 he co-founded Dimon Software, an Icelandic enterprise mobility company, which he helped guide to profitability as a major software provider to Nokia. From 2004 to 2006, he was the VP of Sales for Men & Mice, a provider of specialized network management software to many of the world’s largest organizations.

Phuc Truong is Chief Technology Officer at UpDown, the leading social platform for virtual investing. As CTO, he is responsible for leading the development of strategy, implementation and operations for the technology infrastructure of the company.

With over ten years of software and web development experience, Phuc has been at the front of internet technology from architecting and developing large and scalable systems to managing and building elite software teams. His passion is in developing innovative and cutting edge web destinations.

In 1997, while a student a Harvard University, Phuc co-founded Crimson Solutions Inc (eRecruiting.com). During that time, Phuc served as CTO and led the technology efforts in developing eRecruiting.com into the largest online recruiting destination for colleges and universities today. Crimson Solutions received over $22M of venture capital from Polaris Ventures and grew to over 100 employees. Crimson Solutions eventually become Experience.com and now serves over 3 million students and thousands of universities and is profitable.

In 2001, Phuc founded Zoomlane, a provider of software development and consultancy services. At Zoomlane he developed cutting edge web-base applications for Massachusetts real estate, insurance, CRM, and financial services.

Phuc holds a BA degree in Economics from Harvard University.

UpDown was built upon the angel investment and financial expertise of Mr. Joachim Schoss, one of the most successful Internet entrepreneurs in Europe. From the beginning, UpDown has benefited from his experiences both in the alternative investment industry, and as a leading business strategist.

Mr. Schoss has a history of founding successful companies, including TellSell Consulting and Telcare, which merged with Sykes Enterprises. In 2004 his latest company, Scout24, was acquired by T-Online for $221 million. He was named 2002’s “Business Angel of the Year” in Switzerland.

In addition to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Mr. Schoss also has extensive investment experience, going back to the 1990s. From 2000-2003, he was the Chief Executive for Beisheim Holding Schweiz, and is currently the cornerstone investor of 6S Capital, a quantitative hedge fund firm.

Mr.Schoss is President of the charitable foundation MyHandicap.com, and the Chapter Chair of the Young Presidents Organisation in Zurich.