David Katzman is the founder and Managing Partner of Camelot Venture Group, a private investment group that invests primarily in online direct-to-consumer companies, technology and financial services. He also is a member of the Board of Directors for Sharper Image and Smile Direct Club.
Education
David Katzman earned a degree in Accounting/ Finance from Michigan State University and attended Detroit College of Law for his graduate work.
Camelot Venture Group
For 10 years, David Katzman was the Managing Partner of Camelot Ventures before founding Camelot Venture Group in October of 2008. Some of Camelot Ventures’ current and past investments have involved contact lens retailing companies such as 1-800-Contacts, Lens 1st, and Lens Express; Kintana, RealAge, Rawlings Sporting Goods, Red Envelope, Flashseats, Fathead, Cleanrest, ePrize, Quicken Loans, and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Quicken Loans
Katzman was a former Vice Chairman of Quicken Loans. It settled $19 billion in home loan volume in 2007, weathered the downturn in 2008 and surfaced in 2009 with record origination volume. The company was also listed No. 2 as 100 Best Companies to Work For in America on FORTUNE magazine and by Computerworld magazine as No. 1’s 100 Best Places to Work in Technology. Quicken Loans supervises over 10,000 people in its downtown Detroit headquarters. The company is the top 1 online lender and one of the nation’s Top 10 mortgage.
National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers
As the former Vice Chairman of the National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team and operator of Quicken Loans Arena, Katzman was responsible for all business operations including marketing, sales, sponsorships as well as all capital improvements into Quicken Loans Arena and the construction and design of the new Cavaliers practice facility, the Cleveland Clinic Courts. Under Katzman’s management, profits more than multiplied during the first four years of ownership.
Fathead LLC
Fathead LLC is the leading entertainment and sports life-sized wall graphics company. The company has exclusive licenses with the NBA, NFL, NHL, and the MLB. Other Fathead licenses include Disney, NASCAR, Marvel, Star Wars, and other leading brands. Prior to marketing his interests, Katzman was the Managing Operating Partner and was the second largest shareholder of Fathead.
DeeKay Enterprises, Inc.
Katzman established his career by working in several retail positions with chain store experience until he founded DeeKay Enterprises, Inc. in 1987. This was the beginning of a 10-year series at successfully starting a variation of consumer-oriented companies including a Midwest, Habitat, Lens1st, and National Blinds, and Wallpaper. In 1997, The Home Depot acquired DeeKay Enterprises and all of the assets to strengthen its special-order systems in its stores and strategically enter the direct-to-consumer marketplace.
The Home Depot
Katzman resigned from The Home Depot after a year of passively investing with Camelot Ventures on April 1, 2000, to seek venture investing and advising full time. As former President of The Home Depot SOC, a division of Home Depot USA, his duties mainly included evolving process flow for supervising special orders from initial customer contact to vendor payment, the company’s call center strategy for North America, and full systems integration between the call centers, the internet, the stores, and the vendors. While being the President of the division, The Home Depot’s overall store sales in North America grew from $20 billion to $40 billion.
Board of Directors
Katzman is currently on the boards of directors for Smile Direct Club and Sharper Image. Katzman previously worked on the board of 1-800-Contacts (NASDAQ – CTAC), RealAge.com, and was the Vice Chairman for Quicken Loans and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Community Organizations
David Katzman is involved in several community organizations including as former Chairperson of HAVEN (Help Eliminate Violent Encounters Now), a non-profit that promotes domestic-abuse cases; Honorary Host of ORT, an informative non-profit; and JARC, a non-profit that attends the developmentally disabled. Katzman also is an active fundraiser for various other non-profit organizations.
SmileDirectClub
In 2014, Jordan Katzman and Alex Fenkell founded a company in Detroit called SmileDirectClub, a teledentistry company that produces 3D-printed clear aligners. SmileDirectClub operates with 225 licensed professionals. While most business is conducted online, the company has 200 retail locations in 38 states. The startup rivals directly with Invisalign, whose parent company is Align Technology. Align Technology acquired SmileDirectClub with a 17 percent stake in 2016. The two founders were initially seeded by Jordan’s father, David Katzman, through Katzman’s venture. SmileDirectClub, led by David Katzman, the CEO of the company, moved to Nashville in 2016 when company leaders decided they needed more space.
SmileDirectClub, along with local and state officials, declared that the company will add 2,010 new jobs in Nashville over the next five years. Since 2016, SmileDirectClub has gone from 60 to over 1,600 employees in Music City, with more than 4,000 employees in all. The company says it is hiring about 100 people across North America per week.
In October 2018, SmileDirectClub raised $380 million from Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, along with Spark Capital and Kleiner Perkins, for a valuation of $3.2 billion. In November 2018, the company expanded into Canada. During the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, the company declared collaboration with singer Shawn Mendes on a campaign to show that confidence is gained with an amazing smile.