Sebastian Dobrincu is a technology entrepreneur, engineer and investor. Best known as the youngest judge in the history of the Shark Tank franchise (Imperiul Leilor), he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and has been profiled by international media as "Silicon Valley’s Youngest Self-Made Millionaire."
Born on August 30, 1998, in Romania, Sebastian’s path to industry leadership began with precocious mastery. A self-taught engineer often recognized as a child prodigy, he began writing commercial software at age 8. By age 16, his open-source contributions garnered attention from Apple and Facebook leadership, resulting in invitations to their Silicon Valley headquarters to meet with Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg. This early validation from the world’s most valuable companies solidified his decision to pursue high-growth entrepreneurship over traditional academia.
At age 17, Sebastian relocated to the United States to found Storyheap, a pioneering social media analytics platform. The company quickly secured enterprise contracts with Fortune 500 clients including Hulu, Universal Music, and Tumblr, alongside global icons like Selena Gomez. He successfully exited the venture to private equity at age 24, establishing his reputation as a pragmatic architect of scalable technology.
Today, Sebastian operates at the intersection of luxury infrastructure and artificial intelligence. He is the Founder and CEO of Scento, a Paris-based vertical ecosystem dominating the European fragrance market. Under his leadership, the company leverages proprietary AI to digitize the discovery and transaction of prestige assets across 19 countries, serving as the primary technological bridge between heritage luxury houses and the modern digital economy.
Beyond commerce, Sebastian remains at the forefront of deep tech innovation. He co-founded Revocalize AI, a generative audio platform transforming the music industry. His proprietary vocal synthesis technology is currently utilized by the world’s largest record labels and Grammy-winning producers to create high-fidelity, copyright-cleared vocal tracks.
As a capital allocator, Sebastian manages Stage Ventures, a Los Angeles-based fund deploying revenue-based financing into early-stage AI and e-commerce technologies. He continues to shape the European business landscape from the main stage of Shark Tank, where he evaluates, finances, and mentors the next generation of high-potential founders.
📖 As an angel investor, he actively invests in promising, motivated and hardworking entrepreneurs and their early stage ventures. He is also a featured contributor for publications like Entrepreneur Magazine and Mashable.
📮 Send startup pitches (under 500 words) at dobrincu@stanford.edu
💌 You can get in touch with him on Twitter at @Sebyddd, or via email at sebastian@dobrincu.com