No Priors · Thursday, August 13, 2026
Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest recounted the company's financial journey, noting that while they largely bootstrapped, they did bring in investors starting around 2020-2021. He explained that these were primarily secondary investors, and the company still considers itself bootstrapped.
“Yeah, well, I'll tell you we're still a bootstrap business because CVC came in, but they still, you know, um, they they, uh, they came in and bought secondary.”
“That was part of the fundraising cycle. Obviously, General Atlantic was the first private equity to believe in us, um, back in, you know, 2020 or 2021. Um, they saw our growing business and they had conviction that we, you know, were a strong player in an interesting market.”