Our founder

Louis H. Borders

Mercury Startups was founded by Louis H. Borders, previously a founder of Borders Books & Music, Synergy Software, and Webvan, and currently founder and CEO of HDS Global. 

Louis revolutionized the retail book industry with the founding of Borders, the first book and music superstore chain. Borders successfully leveraged technology to improve the delivery of physical media to consumers. Louis sold his interest in Borders in 1993; at its peak, the company had annual revenues of $3.5 billion. 

Louis was a founder of Synergy Software, a computer-aided-software engineering firm that was later acquired by a leading computer services company. In 1998, he founded Webvan, an online home delivery retailer, and served as its CEO until its successful IPO; the company achieved a peak market value of $7 billion.

Louis brings to Mercury a proven expertise in developing startups that combine advanced technologies with innovative business models to create never-before-possible consumer services. The consistent theme of these new services is that they provide significant quality of life benefits to their customers. He works closely with executives, investors and domain experts at the inception of each Mercury startup to develop the platform, and to identify and mitigate key risks.

Louis studied mathematics at the University of Michigan and MIT.