{{short description|American entrepreneur (born 1975)}} {{Infobox person | name = Andrew T. Perlman | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1975|6|19|mf=y}} | birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | occupation = Inventor, Entrepreneur | title = General Partner at GreatPoint Ventures | boards = Oasys Water, AMP Americas, Coskata Energy }}
'''Andrew Perlman''' (born June 19, 1975) is an American entrepreneur who has co-founded nine venture-backed companies in the telecom, high-tech, pharmaceuticals, energy, water, and biotechnology industries. He is currently general partner of GreatPoint Ventures,<ref name=Bloomberg>Bloomberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=26577631&privcapId=25343375"], ''Bloomberg'', May 14, 2015</ref> and the former chairman and CEO of GreatPoint Energy, a company based in Chicago, Illinois which develops technology to produce clean natural gas from coal. Perlman has been featured on the MIT Technology Review’s list of the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35<ref name=MIT>[http://www2.technologyreview.com/TR35/Profile.aspx?trid=768 "35 Innovators Under 35"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201205100133/http://www2.technologyreview.com/TR35/Profile.aspx?trid=768 |date=2020-12-05 }}, ''MIT Technology Review'', 2009</ref> and Crain’s Chicago Business’s list of 40 leaders under 40 in Chicago.<ref name="CrainList">Daniels, Steve [http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/40under40-2012?p=Perlman “Andrew Perlman”], ''40 Under 40: 2012'', 2012</ref> Perlman and GreatPoint Energy have been profiled by ''The Wall Street Journal'',<ref name="WSJ">Kolodny, Lora [https://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2012/02/20/bluer-skies-for-beijing-u-s-start-up-strikes-1-25-billion-deal-to-turn-chinese-coal-into-natural-gas/?mg=blogs-wsj&url=http%253A%252F%252Fblogs.wsj.com%252Fventurecapital%252F2012%252F02%252F20%252Fbluer-skies-for-beijing-u-s-start-up-strikes-1-25- "Bluer Skies for Shanghai?"], ''Wall Street Journal Venture Capital Dispatch'', February 20, 2012</ref> NPR,<ref name="NPR">Shogren, Elizabeth [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5356683 "Turning Dirty Coal into Clean Energy"] ''NPR'', April 25, 2006</ref> Forbes,<ref name="Forbes">Fisher, Daniel [https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/1029/168.html “$100 Oil? We Love It”], ''Forbes'', October 13, 2007</ref> and Fast Company.<ref>Daniels, Cora [http://www.fastcompany.com/60633/fast-talk-coals-metamorphosis-man "Coal's Metamorphosis Man"], ''Fast Co.'', October 1, 2007</ref>
== Early life ==
Perlman was born in Boston and grew up in the cities of Newton and Cohassett in Massachusetts. At age 12, he began tracking down the owners of dormant bank accounts, and taking a 20% commission in exchange for leading them to their forgotten money.<ref name=CNN>Reeves, Richard [https://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/1997/10/01/231812/ "The New Wealth"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928232719/https://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/1997/10/01/231812/ |date=September 28, 2013 }}, ''CNN Money'', October 10, 1997</ref>
Later in his youth, he unsuccessfully applied for a federal license to construct an ethanol still in his parents’ house.<ref name="CrainList" />
Perlman began college at Washington University in St. Louis, and as a sophomore he attempted to license and commercialize a university-owned technology to prevent credit card fraud.<ref name=CrainProfile>Daniels, Steve [http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120915/ISSUE01/309159969/a-chicagocompany-brings-power-to-the-peoples-republic "A Chicago company brings power to the People's Republic"], ''Crain's Chicago Business'', September 12, 2012</ref> The university turned him down because he was still a student, so Perlman dropped out.{{Needs citation|date=June 2024}}
== Early career ==
Perlman and a friend dropped out of Washington University and moved to Washington D.C., where they “hung around business and government offices, knocking on doors, asking anyone they could find about some kind of new technology they could turn into a business.”<ref name=CNN /> The two had little technical education, but through research and trial and error, they built a device that converts voice calls into a data format. By age 22, they signed a deal for the first $14 million in startup financing for their new company Cignal Global Communications.<ref name=CNN /> Three years later, Perlman sold the company for $200 million.<ref name=Forbes />
== Previous companies ==
Perlman went on to “launch five successful startups before he turned 30.”<ref name=CrainProfile /> On its list of the world’s top 35 innovators under 35, the MIT Technology Review cites Perlman’s former project GreatPoint Energy as well as other disruptive technology ventures in important areas, writing “cheaper desalination plants, anti-obesity medicines, drugs that fight diseases of old age, and [processes for converting garbage into biofuel and generating electricity from geothermal energy.”<ref name=MIT />
Perlman is on the board of directors at Jetti Resources.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hume |first=Neil |date=27 July 2020 |title=Copper start-up appoints mining veteran Chip Goodyear to board |newspaper=Financial Times |url=https://www.ft.com/content/525b15b8-253f-4710-a522-3d14a7abbe7e |url-access=subscription |access-date=2020-08-19}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20060308180148/http://www.greatpointenergy.com/ GreatPoint Energy official site]}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perlman, Andrew}} Category:1975 births Category:American chairpersons of corporations Category:American chief technology officers Category:American chief executives in technology Category:American technology company founders Category:Businesspeople from Chicago Category:Living people Category:Washington University in St. Louis alumni