# Jonathan Heller

> Jonathan Heller is the chairman, founder and co-CEO of Firsthand, a New York AI startup building Brand Agents - AI representatives that talk directly to consumers on behalf of publishers and brands. An adtech lifer, he co-founded the online video advertising platform FreeWheel in 2007 and sold it to Comcast for roughly $360 million in 2014. At Firsthand he is reuniting with his old DoubleClick colleague Michael Rubenstein to argue that generative AI is not a better ad-serving engine but an entirely new medium for reaching people.

- **Role:** Chairman, Founder and Co-CEO at Firsthand
- **Organizations:** Firsthand, Multitude.ai, Blockgraph, Comcast, FreeWheel, Yahoo!, Visible World, DoubleClick, Oliver Wyman
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- **Known for:** Co-founded FreeWheel (2007) and built it into a leading online video advertising platform, Sold FreeWheel to Comcast in 2014 for approximately $360 million, Co-founded Firsthand and raised a $26 million Series A in March 2025 led by Radical Ventures

## Career timeline

- **early career** — Consultant at Oliver Wyman
- **2000s** — Worked at DoubleClick, where he met future collaborator Michael Rubenstein
- **2000s** — Held roles at Visible World and Yahoo!
- **2007** — Co-founded FreeWheel with Doug Knopper and Diane Yu, all former DoubleClick executives, to deliver ads in online video
- **2014** — Comcast acquired FreeWheel for roughly $360 million; Heller stayed on to run it as a standalone unit
- **post-2014** — Worked at Comcast and was involved with Blockgraph, a media data initiative
- **before Firsthand** — Co-founder and CEO of Multitude.ai
- **2023-2024** — Co-founded Firsthand with Michael Rubenstein and Wei Wei
- **2025** — Firsthand raised a $26M Series A led by Radical Ventures to scale its AI Brand Agent platform

## Achievements

- Co-founded FreeWheel (2007) and built it into a leading online video advertising platform
- Sold FreeWheel to Comcast in 2014 for approximately $360 million
- Co-founded Firsthand and raised a $26 million Series A in March 2025 led by Radical Ventures
- Built Firsthand's Lakebed data and knowledge rights-management system
- Recognized as one of the digital advertising pioneers behind DoubleClick, FreeWheel and AppNexus lineage of companies

## Latest updates

- **2025-01** — Appeared on the NVIDIA AI Podcast to discuss how AI agents can enhance customer journeys in retail.
- **2025-03** — Firsthand announced a $26 million Series A led by Radical Ventures, with plans to roughly double headcount to 50-60 people.

## Links

- Website: https://firsthand.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonheller/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jonathan-heller
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-26