Larry Drebes

{{Infobox person

| name = Larry Drebes

| image =

| caption = Larry Drebes

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1967|4|20}}

| birth_place = St. Louis, United States

| alma_mater = Maryville University

| occupation = Founder, Janrain

| spouse = Karen Drebes

}}

Larry Drebes (born April 20, 1967) is an American businessman and the co-founder of Janrain, Four11 Corporation, and Desktop.com. He was also an early leader of the OpenID initiative, which was widely supported by Google, Yahoo!, and other providers of online identity.

Career

In 1992, Drebes was a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Four11 Corporation, the parent company of Rocketmail, an early webmail provider. Four11 was acquired by Yahoo in October 1997 for $97 million,{{cite press release |publisher=Yahoo! |date=October 8, 1997 |url= https://investor.yahoo.net/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=173315 |title= Yahoo! To Acquire Four11 Corporation}} and RocketMail became Yahoo! Mail.{{cite news |last=Griffin |first=Gretchen |title=Rocketmail Slowly Gets Grounded |url=http://www.flakmag.com/opinion/rocket.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030301011513/http://www.flakmag.com/opinion/rocket.html |archive-date=1 March 2003 |access-date=12 June 2024 |publisher=Flak Magazine}}

Drebes then founded Desktop.com in 1999 {{cite news | url=http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/print.php/186901|title=Desktop.com Secures $29M in First-Round Financing |publisher=InternetNews}} and secured $29 million in financing.{{cite news | title=Desktop.com joining Web-based applications market | url=http://www.news.com/Desktop.com-joining-Web-based-applications-market/2100-1023_3-227919.html

|publisher=CNET}} The company was shut down in 2001 after giving back about half the venture capital it received.{{cite news| title=Start-Ups that Flopped in 2001; What Twenty-Four Financially Distressed Start-Ups Did to Attempt to Save Their Company| url=http://white-summers.com/firm/publications/miscellaneous/start-ups-that-flopped-in-2001-what-twenty-four-financially-distressed-start-ups-did-to-attempt-to-save-their-company/| access-date=2014-11-13| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141113070406/http://white-summers.com/firm/publications/miscellaneous/start-ups-that-flopped-in-2001-what-twenty-four-financially-distressed-start-ups-did-to-attempt-to-save-their-company/| archive-date=2014-11-13| url-status=dead}}

In 2002, Drebes began working closely with the early proponents of the OpenID protocol. In response to his work, he founded Janrain in 2002{{cite news | title=JanRain Offers Universal Logins, Puts Portland at Center of Internet Identity Movement

| url=http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/04/09/janrain-offers-universal-logins-puts-portland-at-center-of-internet-identity-movement/

|publisher=Xconomy}} to build software for user management based on OpenID. The company is perhaps best known for its social ID login technology, which allows users of Facebook, Google and many other social networks to log into any web site using previously established social IDs. Janrain has received over $79 million in venture capital funding, including $15.5 million in 2011{{cite news | title=Janrain logs $15.5M to help log you in through social networks

| url=https://venturebeat.com/2011/08/02/janrain-social-login/

|publisher=VentureBeat}} $33 million in 2013 {{cite news | title=Janrain Raises $33 Million To Supercharge Social Media

| url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2013/01/14/janrain-raises-33-million-to-supercharge-social-media/

|work=Forbes}} and $27 million in 2015.