Samir Arora

Samir Arora is the former CEO of Mode Media (formerly Glam Media), the digital lifestyle publisher he built to a roughly $1 billion valuation before departing amid a boardroom dispute in 2016, five months before the company abruptly shut down.

Based in San Francisco, CA Org Kanza AI Role Founder & CEO

Notable work and positions

Kanza AI — Founder and CEO (since 2022)
Mode Media (formerly Glam Media) — former Founder, Chairman and CEO (2003–2016)
NetObjects, Inc. — former Founder, Chairman and CEO
Information Capital LLC — Chairman / Managing Partner (since 1997)
Apple Inc. — former Software and New Media executive (1982–1991)

Biography

Samir Arora began his career at Apple Inc., working in the company's Software and New Media group from 1982 to 1991. He went on to found and lead NetObjects, Inc., a web design software company, serving as its founder, chairman and CEO; NetObjects created NetObjects Fusion, one of the first products that let people build websites without programming, and the company went public on Nasdaq in 1999. Arora has chaired Information Capital LLC, a venture capital investment fund, since 1997, and later became managing partner of the venture firm Woodside Incubator.

In 2003, Arora co-founded Glam Media, a network of women's lifestyle and fashion websites that launched Glam.com in September 2005; he served as the company's interim chief executive before becoming its chairman and CEO. Under Arora, the company expanded into additional lifestyle categories under brands including Foodie, Bliss, Brash and Tend, acquired the social-networking platform Ning, and rebranded as Mode Media in 2014. Mode raised more than $200 million from investors including Hubert Burda Media, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and was valued at roughly $1 billion as it prepared for a possible initial public offering in 2013, though the IPO never materialized.

In April 2016, Arora left his position as Mode Media's chief executive; press materials at the time described the move as Arora stepping down while remaining on the company's board, but Burda Media, Mode's lead investor, later told Business Insider that Arora departed “by Board Resolution.” He was succeeded by longtime Mode executive Jack Rotolo as interim CEO. Five months later, on September 15, 2016, Mode Media abruptly shut down its remaining U.S. operations and laid off its staff, leaving a number of freelance contributors unpaid; the company's Ning division was taken over by New York-based Cyndx, and in 2022 Static Media acquired and relaunched the Glam.com and Foodie.com sites.

After leaving Mode, Arora founded Sage Digital, also known as Sage Digital AI, serving as its chairman and later chief executive from 2016 to 2021, followed by Kyro Digital Corp., from 2021 to 2023. He founded Project Bento, an initiative supporting local and minority-owned businesses, in 2020. Arora is currently founder and CEO of Kanza AI, a Silicon Valley company building generative-AI clinical reasoning tools for health systems, and of the related venture SageAssist AI.

Career highlights

1. NetObjects Fusion and Nasdaq IPO, 1999Led NetObjects, Inc. in developing one of the first no-code website-building products and took the company public.

2. Glam Media / Mode Media, 2003–2016Built a women's lifestyle web publisher into a roughly $1 billion-valued, multi-brand digital media company before departing amid a boardroom dispute with lead investor Hubert Burda Media.

3. Mode Media's collapse, September 2016The company shut down abruptly five months after Arora's departure, laying off remaining staff and leaving some freelance contributors unpaid.