Artem Mashkov
.
Founder. Operator. Investor.
Multi-exit founder and wartime operator.
Twenty years building companies, then selling them. Through every downturn, three exits across retail, hospitality, and B2B. The biggest scaled to $180M. Now onto something new.
12
Verizon stores built, Paging Zone
$22M
Annual revenue, first business started at 19, still running 20 years later
$180M
SwagUp revenue as COO/CFO
3 exits
Across retail, hospitality, and B2B
Since 19
It started with one cell phone store.
Immigrant kid, grew up on welfare. I didn't get into a single college I applied to, Stuyvesant diploma and all. So I took a job at a cell phone store in South Brooklyn, got good at it, and bought it at 19 with my mother's life savings. Paid her back in seven months, with interest, while finishing at Baruch. Twenty years later, that business is still running.
Every company since has run on the same instinct: collect good people, sell the relationship over the transaction, bet on the team over the idea. Built through multiple recessions, a pandemic, and the worst inflation in 40 years. The millennial special.
Track record
From the ground up, more than once.
COO → CFO · 2018–2025
SwagUp
Scaled to $180M as COO, No. 23 on the Inc. 5000. Then ran the turnaround as CFO (EBITDA -$3M → +$2.8M) and sold it to BDA.
Managing Partner · Verizon
Paging Zone
Built a Verizon premium retailer from nothing to 12 stores across NYC and $22M a year, at 4.8 stars across 5,000+ reviews.
Founder · since 2010
Intelligent Ventures
Backing founders for 15 years, with multiple exits.
Now
Building something new in B2B.
Founder of a stealth startup, working with a small group of founding clients and pre-seed investors ahead of launch.