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Hayley Barna

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Hayley Barna
Born1983
New York
Alma materHarvard University and Harvard Business School
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, investor
WebsiteFirst Round

Hayley Barna is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded Birchbox in 2009, while at Harvard Business School.[1] In 2015, Barna "stepped away from her day-to-day role" at Birchbox,[2] remaining a board member. In 2016, she became a partner of First Round Capital.[3]

Early life and education

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Hayley Bay Barna was born in 1983.[4] Her parents, Eileen B. Maisel and Richard A. Barna of New York, both worked at RAB Lighting in New Jersey.[4] In high school, she was published in an international science research journal.[5] She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard[4] and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.[6][7]

Career

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Barna began her career shortly after she graduated from Harvard University joining Bain & Company in New York.[8] She moved to Christie's Hong Kong location where she worked in strategy and then in product management for Amazon.com.[9]

Birchbox

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While working towards her MBA at Harvard Business School, Barna became friends with Katia Beauchamp. Together, they founded the company Birchbox in 2010.[2][6] What began as a business plan during B-School, turned into a website where they began to acquire customers interested in "an ecommerce experience focused on new product discovery."[10] In 2013, Barna and Beauchamp won the Leadership Award At Forbes Women's Summit.[11] Barna and Beauchamp opened the first Birchbox store in 2014.[12]

As of 2015, Birchbox had received over $70 million in venture funding and had one million subscribers.[13] In August 2015,[14] Barna stepped down from her role as co-CEO of the company.[2][15][16] She remained a member of the board, and she spent the subsequent six months as an angel investor.[14][17]

First round

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In 2016, after announcing it in February,[18] Barna joined First Round Capital as a venture partner.[14] On February 16, 2016, Barna shared a post on publishing platform medium.com about her first day at First Round stating, "I can’t think of a better place to do this than First Round, which led the seed round in my company Birchbox, and has always put founders first through good times and bad."[19] She was their first female partner.[20][3] One of her first initial First Round investments was the travel startup Collective Hotels & Retreats, with her also joining the board.[21]

By late 2017, she largely focused on e-commerce startups.[17] She was on the boards of Madison Reed and RAB Lighting.[17] She was also organizing a working group of women in technology in New York with monthly meetings.[22] Also in late 2017, she was promoted to general partner. At that point, she had invested in companies such as Collective Retreats, Keeps, CrowdJustice, and Mirror.[14]

Personal life

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Barna is based in Manhattan,[23] New York.[17] While at Harvard Business School, she met her husband, Fredrik Vik Maroe. They wed in 2014, at a private estate located in Staatsburg, New York.[4]

References

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  1. ^ Bosker, Bianca (25 March 2012). "Executive Tech Editor". www.huffingtonpost.com. Huffington Post. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "Birchbox co-CEO Hayley Barna steps down". Fortune. 2015-08-11. Retrieved 2016-11-18.
  3. ^ a b Rey, Jason Del (2016-02-16). "Birchbox Co-Founder Hayley Barna Joins First Round Capital as First Female Partner". Recode. Retrieved 2016-11-18.
  4. ^ a b c d "Hayley Barna, Fredrik Maroe". The New York Times. July 20, 2014.
  5. ^ Cotton Delo. "Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna". AdAge.
  6. ^ a b "Hayley Barna, founder Birchbox - stagiworks.com". www.stagiworks.com. Retrieved 2016-11-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ^ "Hayley Bay Barna". Society for Science. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  8. ^ "Hayley Barna". www.bain.com. Retrieved 2016-11-18.
  9. ^ "Hayley Barna - Claudia Chan". Claudia Chan. Retrieved 2016-11-18.
  10. ^ "How I Did It: Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna, Founders of Birchbox - Maria Shriver". mariashriver.com. Retrieved 2016-11-18.
  11. ^ "Birchbox Cofounders Win Leadership Award At Forbes Women's Summit". Forbes. May 9, 2013.
  12. ^ "BIRCHBOX LAUNCHES ITS FIRST PERMANENT BRICK-AND-MORTAR STORE". Fashionista. July 11, 2014.
  13. ^ Chhabra, Esha. "Key To Success: Beauty Box Company Birchbox Says It's Not Just About The Box". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-01-24.
  14. ^ a b c d Polina Marinova (April 25, 2018). "BirchBox CEO-Turned-Investor Hayley Barna Discusses Top Founder Mistakes". Fortune.
  15. ^ Laura Entis (August 11, 2015). "Hayley Barna Steps Down as Co-CEO of Birchbox". Entrepreneur.
  16. ^ "Birchbox Finds Cute Boxes Filled With Makeup Aren't Enough". Bloomberg.com. 2016-06-03. Retrieved 2017-01-24.
  17. ^ a b c d Connie Loizos (November 7, 2017). "Hayley Barna just became the first female GP in First Round's history". TechCrunch.
  18. ^ Zoe Henry (May 9, 2016). "Birchbox Co-Founder Hayley Barna: 'I Have a Few More Businesses in Me'". Inc.com.
  19. ^ Round, First (2016-02-16). "It's My First Day at First Round". Medium. Retrieved 2016-11-18.
  20. ^ "Birchbox Co-Founder Hayley Barna Joins First Round Capital". Fortune. February 16, 2016.
  21. ^ "Birchbox Cofounder Hayley Barna On New Ventures, Glamping, And Her Filthy Fridge". Fast Company. September 12, 2016.
  22. ^ Clare O'Connor (November 7, 2017). "In New York VC, Two Women Make History As First Female General Partners". Forbes.
  23. ^ Kathryn Hopkins (October 13, 2017). "EXCLUSIVE: Birchbox Cofounder Buys $14M Manhattan Condo". WWD.
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