Name Dave McClure | Role Entrepreneur | |
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Occupation Entrepreneur, angel investor Education Johns Hopkins University (1988) Organizations founded 500 Startups, Aslan Computing Similar People Ron Conway, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Paul Graham, Sean Parker Profiles | ||
Dave mcclure 500 startups
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.
Contents
- Dave mcclure 500 startups
- startups dave mcclure founding partner 500 startups twist 328
- Biography
- Technology startups
- 500 Startups
- References
startups dave mcclure founding partner 500 startups twist 328
Biography
McClure was born in and grew up in West Virginia. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Sciences Engineering.
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.
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.
McClure gained attention both for his opinionated blog 500 Hats (as of 2011 one of the ten most-read blogs on venture capital finance), and as one of the so-called "Super Angel" investors involved in the Angelgate controversy.
500 Startups
500 Startups is a seed accelerator and related investment fund McClure founded in 2010. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its office in Mountain View, California in January, 2011. They expanded to a second class of 21 in June 2011 and a third class of 34 in October 2011.
As of July 27, 2013, 500 Startups had invested in over 500 companies, including Safe Shepherd, Markerly, idreambooks, Fileboard, myGengo, Cleanify, Artsicle, ChinaNetCloud, Cucumbertown Visual.ly, E la Carte, Canva, Udemy, 24/7 Techies. ZipMatch, ViralGains, and RidePal. Of current investments, more than 20% have participated in other incubators, 10-15% are international, and 10 have been acquired.
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.
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. In response, he stepped down from day-to-day management in a post titled "I'm a Creep. I'm Sorry." A few days after, McClure severed all ties, resigning as general partner as well.