Mobile search and ad startup Quixey replaces founding CEO Tomer Kagan with veteran exec Mark Lazar after raising $60M and missing sales targets last year
Mark Bergen / Re/code :
Context & Ripple Effects
Quixey's 2016 has been a controlled demolition in slow motion. A year after the $60M Series C from Alibaba, SoftBank, GGV, and Goldman Sachs, the company missed its revenue targets, and last month the COO and CTO both walked out. Replacing founding CEO Tomer Kagan with outside operator Mark Lazar is the third and biggest piece of that cleanup.
The move matters because of who holds the paper: Alibaba led the round, and the investors' patience with the app-search thesis is what's being tested here. The board swapping in a veteran exec rather than doubling down on the founder signals they want a turnaround run on business metrics, not product vision.
First-order effects
- Tomer Kagan loses control of the company he founded, and Mark Lazar inherits a leadership bench already gutted by the COO/CTO departures — he arrives as the sole senior hire tasked with hitting the sales numbers Kagan missed.
Second-order effects
- With a professional manager installed, lead investor Alibaba gains a more direct lever over Quixey's strategy, shifting the company from founder-led product bets toward whatever monetization path satisfies the round's backers.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, this previews how deep-pocketed strategic investors handle underperforming portfolio companies: founder replacement first, then either a rescue or an orderly wind-down — a 'quasi-exit' where the investor salvages value without a traditional sale.
The trend: Strategic investors like Alibaba are increasingly willing to replace founders at struggling mobile startups, turning big funding rounds into de facto control events.