Jesse Lipson

Founder/CEO at Levitate, Board member at Green Places, Yext, Raleigh Founded and Brooks Bell

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

About

A self-taught software programmer, I have launched and led multiple cloud and e-commerce businesses since the age of 23. My first startup was Rapidata.net, a pharmaceutical market research company, where I served as CEO. While involved with Rapidata, I helped grow revenues by over 500% and laid the foundation for the company's acquisition by Greenfield Online. Subsequent to Rapidata.net, I co-founded and served as CEO for a web site development firm called novelProjects. I founded ShareFile in late 2005, bootstrapping the company from zero to four million users in six years. I joined Citrix in 2011, when Citrix acquired ShareFile. At Citrix, I was the CVP & GM of the Cloud Services Business Unit at Citrix, where I was responsible for the vision, market direction and strategy behind Citrix's cloud products, including ShareFile, ShareConnect, RightSignature, and Citrix Workspace Cloud. In 2017, I left Citrix to found Levitate, a marketing software company that helps small businesses keep in touch with their clients and prospects in a personal, authentic way...at scale. Levitate has over 7,000 customers and 250 employees as of 2025. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Duke University with a degree in philosophy in 2000. I currently serve on the board of directors of Yext and Geenplaces and am a founding partner of Raleigh Founded, a co-working space in downtown Raleigh.

Experience

  • Co-Founder at Raleigh Founded
    Jul 2012 - Present · 14 yrs 1 mo

  • Board Member at Yext
    Jul 2012 - Present · 14 yrs 1 mo

  • Board Member at Green Places
    Jun 2021 - Present · 5 yrs 2 mos

    Lead investor and Board member

  • Founder and CEO at Levitate
    Oct 2017 - Present · 8 yrs 10 mos

    Founded in 2017 by ShareFile creator Jesse Lipson, Levitate was built with a passion for helping small and medium-sized businesses focus on what they do best: building relationships. Our pioneering approach to marketing—what we call “keep-in-touch” marketing—leverages personal, authentic communication strategies with the power of an AI-driven platform to keep your business top of mind all the time. Clients can use the platform to send top-performing email and social media post templates to their network, make AI-created content in seconds, use our built-in meeting booking, send Happiness Surveys to get a pulse on your clients, generate reviews, set up keep-in-touch tags for contacts, create automated drip campaigns, and more -- all with a dedicated Success Specialist by your side. For more information, visit www.levitate.ai.

  • Citrix (11 yrs 5 mos)
    • Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Services BU
      Jan 2016 - Mar 2017 · 1 yr 3 mos

      I lead the Cloud Service Business Unit at Citrix, with responsibility for ShareFile, RightSignature, Citrix Workspace Cloud, and the Citrix Service Provider program.

    • VP & GM, Workflow & Workspace Clouds
      May 2015 - Jan 2016 · 9 mos

      I am responsible for Citrix Workspace Cloud and also the the Workflow Cloud, which consists of ShareFile, GoToMyPC, ShareConnect, QuickEdit, RightSignature, GoToAssist, and Podio.

    • VP & GM, Documents Cloud
      Feb 2014 - May 2015 · 1 yr 4 mos

      I am responsible for the Documents Cloud group at Citrix, which consists of ShareFile, GoToMyPC, and QuickEdit.