Brent Hoberman was born in Cape Town on 25 November 1968. He went to the Dragon School and Eton, then read Modern Languages at New College, Oxford.
In 1998 he co-founded lastminute.com with Martha Lane Fox and was its CEO from the start. He stayed CEO until 2005, then became chairman and chief strategy officer in April 2006 and left in January 2007. Sabre bought the business for $1.1bn.
In 2010 he co-founded Made.com and became its founding chairman. The online furniture retailer listed in London in June 2021 at a market value of £775m. Hoberman had left the chair shortly before the float. Made.com went into administration on 9 November 2022, and Next relaunched the brand in 2023.
In 2015 he launched Founders Factory, a corporate-backed startup accelerator, with Henry Lane Fox. He was appointed CBE in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to entrepreneurship.