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Dave McClure

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Dave McClure
Dave McClure, August 2007
Born1966 or 1967 (age 57–58)[1]
EducationJohns Hopkins University
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, angel investor

Dave McClure is an entrepreneur and angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who founded the business accelerator 500 Startups, serving as CEO until his resignation in 2017 following revelations of sexual misconduct.[2][3]

Biography

McClure was born in and grew up in West Virginia.[4] He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Sciences Engineering.[5]

Technology startups

McClure founded Aslan Computing, a technology consultancy, in 1994, and later sold the company to Servinet/Panurgy in 1998. He subsequently worked as a technology consultant to Microsoft, Intel, and other high-tech companies. He was Director of Marketing at PayPal from 2001 through 2004. After that, he launched and ran marketing for Simply Hired in 2005 and 2006.[6]

After leaving PayPal, McClure became a frequent investor in consumer Internet startup companies, investing in and advising more than 15 consumer internet startups, including virtual goods monetization and payments platform Jambool (acquired by Google in 2010) and US online education directory TeachStreet (acquired by Amazon in 2011). During the summer of 2009, McClure was acting investment director for Facebook fbFund (a joint venture incubator/accelerator with prominent venture capital firms Founders Fund and Accel Partners), which provided early-stage capital to startups developing applications using Facebook Platform & Facebook Connect.[7]

McClure gained attention both for his opinionated blog 500 Hats (as of 2011 one of the ten most-read blogs on venture capital finance),[8] and as one of the so-called "Super Angel" investors[9] involved in the Angelgate controversy.[10][11]

500 Startups

500 Startups is a seed accelerator and related investment fund McClure founded in 2010.[12] The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its office in Mountain View, California in January, 2011.[13] They expanded to a second class of 21 in June 2011 and a third class of 34 in October 2011.[14][15]

As of July 27, 2013, 500 Startups had invested in over 500 companies,[16] including Safe Shepherd,[17] Markerly, idreambooks, Fileboard, myGengo, Cleanify, Artsicle, ChinaNetCloud,[18] Cucumbertown[19] Visual.ly, E la Carte, Canva,[20][21] Udemy,[22][23][24][25] 24/7 Techies.[26][27][28] ZipMatch,[29][30] ViralGains,[31] and RidePal.[32] Of current investments, more than 20% have participated in other incubators, 10-15% are international, and 10 have been acquired.[33]

In 2012 the organization acquired Mexican.VC, an accelerator in Mexico City, expecting to ramp up its investment in Mexico substantially. Through its investment in Alta Ventures, 500 Startups planned to have better access to deal-flow in this region.[34]

In 2017, McClure was identified in a New York Times article about sexual harassment in venture capital. He was described as sending sexually inappropriate messages to a female investor, who later sought employment at his company. [35] In response, he stepped down from day-to-day management in a post titled "I'm a Creep. I'm Sorry."[36] A few days after, McClure severed all ties, resigning as general partner as well.[37]

References

  1. ^ McClure, Dave. "late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)". 500hats.com. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
  2. ^ "I'm a Creep. I'm Sorry. – 500 Hats". 500 Hats. 2017-07-01. Retrieved 2017-07-02.
  3. ^ "Exclusive: Dave McClure resigns as general partner of 500 Startups funds". Axios. 2017-07-03. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  4. ^ "From The Vault Dave McClure (500 Startups)". www.startupgrind.com. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  5. ^ "Venture capitalist Dave McClure plays the odds when picking his next investment". The Hub. 2015-06-04. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  6. ^ "Dave McClure, Master of 500 Hats". Web 2.0 Summit.
  7. ^ "Dave McClure", LinkedIn profile.
  8. ^ Austin, Scott (January 20, 2011). "The Most-Read Blogs by Venture Capitalists". Wall Street Journal.
  9. ^ Saint, Nick (October 4, 2010). "Who Are The Super Angels? A Comprehensive Guide". Business Insider.
  10. ^ Maggie Shiels (September 23, 2010). "'Angelgate': A tech conspiracy?". BBC.
  11. ^ "After Quiet Dinner, Angels Get Indigestion". New York Times. September 22, 2010.
  12. ^ Rosoff, Matt (February 11, 2011). "Exclusive: The Controversial Dave McClure Tells All". Business Insider.
  13. ^ Tsotsis, Alexia (June 9, 2011). "500 Startups Unveils 2nd Batch: 21 Startups". TechCrunch.
  14. ^ Ha, Anthony (June 9, 2011). "500 Startups accelerates 21 new companies". Venture Beat.
  15. ^ Lawler, Ryan (January 25, 2012). "The best and brightest from 500 Startups' third demo day". GigaOM.
  16. ^ Kolodny, Lara (June 27, 2013). Dave McClure Hits 500. The Wall Street Journal.
  17. ^ Gruber, Frank. "500 STARTUPS UNVEILS LATEST CLASS OF 34 STARTUPS". Tech Cocktail, LLC. Retrieved 27 September 2013.
  18. ^ "Dave McClures first investment in China: ChinaNetCloud".
  19. ^ B Pradeep Nair. "Recipe to bring cooks and foodies together". The Times of India.
  20. ^ "Canva Investors".
  21. ^ "Canva Raises $3 million".
  22. ^ Toto, Serkan, "MyGengo Is Mechanical Turk For Translations". The Washington Post. 2010-01-11
  23. ^ Shontell, Alyson, "After Bootstrapping For A Year, Monthly Art Rental Startup Artsicle Raises $390,000 Seed Round". Business Insider. 2011-11-02
  24. ^ Ha, Anthony and Lynley, Matthew, "The coolest companies from Dave McClure’s 500Startups". VentureBeat. 2011-04-06
  25. ^ Toto, Serkan,"Udemy Scores $1M In Seed Funding, Aims To Democratize Online Learning". TechCrunch. 2010-08-31
  26. ^ Lomas, Natasha, "Remote Tech Support Firm, 24/7 Techies, Raises $600k Seed Round — Led By 500 Startups — To Ramp Up SMB Business". techcrunch.com. November 5th, 2012
  27. ^ Ken, Yeung, "24/7 Techies nabs $600k from 500 Startups and others to be the IT solution for small businesses". thenextweb.com 5 November 2012
  28. ^ "24/7 Techies Profile on 500Startups" 500.co
  29. ^ Huang, Elaine "ZipMatch secures funds to scale real estate marketplace business" e27.co February 28th, 2014
  30. ^ Magdirila, Phoebe, "Philippine real estate marketplace can afford a bigger apartment with latest funding round" techinasia.com Feb 27th, 2014
  31. ^ Lawler, Ryan (2013-10-29). "500 Startups Accelerator Batch 7 Begins, With Everything From Electronic Skateboards To Poop In A Box". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-06-04.
  32. ^ Perez, Sarah. RidePal, The “Google Bus For The Rest Of Us,” Scores $500K From 500 Startups & Others, TechCrunch. September 10th, 2012
  33. ^ Empson, Rip (April 6, 2012). "500 Startups Raising New $50M Fund, Names 4 New Partners, With 250+ Investments To Date". TechCrunch.
  34. ^ Source:Alta Ventures Mexico Raises $70M First Fund, Draws Support from 500 Startups
  35. ^ McClure, Dave. "Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment". nytimes. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  36. ^ "I'm a Creep. I'm Sorry. – 500 Hats". 500 Hats. 2017-07-01. Retrieved 2017-07-02.
  37. ^ "Exclusive: Dave McClure resigns as general partner of 500 Startups funds". Axios. 2017-07-03. Retrieved 2017-07-03.