Dave McClure

Last updated
Dave McClure
Dave McClure 2007.jpg
McClure in August 2007
Born1966or1967(age 56–57) [1]
West Virginia, United States
Education Johns Hopkins University (BS)
Occupation(s) Entrepreneur, angel investor

David "Dave" McClure is an entrepreneur and angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who founded the business accelerator 500 Startups (now 500 Global),and served as its CEO until his resignation in 2017. [2] [3] He founded Practical Venture Capital soon after, a new venture capital fund that would continue to work with companies he previously funded through 500 Startups. [4]

Contents

Biography

McClure was born in Morgantown, West Virginia and grew up in Columbia, Maryland. [5] He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Engineering. [6]

Technology startups

McClure founded Aslan Computing, a technology consultancy, in 1994, and sold the company to Servinet/Panurgy in 1998. He subsequently worked as a technology consultant to Microsoft, Intel and other high-tech companies. McClure was director of marketing at PayPal from 2001 through 2004. He then launched and ran marketing for Simply Hired in 2005 and 2006. [7]

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 using Facebook Platform & Facebook Connect. [8]

In 2010, McClure founded 500 Startups (now 500 Global), a seed accelerator and related investment fund. [9]

McClure gained attention both for his opinionated blog 500 Hats (as of 2011 one of the ten most-read blogs on venture capital finance), [10] and as one of the so-called "Super Angel" investors [11] involved in the Angelgate controversy. [12] [13]

Sexual Harassment Allegations

In 2017, McClure was identified in a New York Times article, with Sacca, 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. [14] In response, he stepped down from day-to-day management in a post titled "I'm a Creep. I'm Sorry". [15] He then denied the accusations and retracted his apology in another post that was then deleted. [16] A few days later, McClure severed all ties with 500 Startups, resigning as general partner as well. [17] Hours after McClure resigned, a fresh allegation surfaced against him, this time of sexual assault. [18]

McClure later created a new venture capital fund, Practical Venture Capital, which aims to buy equity in companies he funded through 500 Startups. [19]

Related Research Articles

A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential.

Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term seed suggests that this is a very early investment, meant to support the business until it can generate cash of its own, or until it is ready for further investments. Seed money options include friends and family funding, seed venture capital funds, angel funding, and crowdfunding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Calacanis</span> American businessman

Jason McCabe Calacanis is an American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, author and podcaster.

Social venture capital is a form of investment funding that is usually funded by a group of social venture capitalists or an impact investor to provide seed-funding investment, usually in a for-profit social enterprise, in return to achieve an outsized gain in financial return while delivering social impact to the world. There are various organizations, such as Venture Philanthropy (VP) companies and nonprofit organizations, that deploy a simple venture capital strategy model to fund nonprofit events, social enterprises, or activities that deliver a high social impact or a strong social causes for their existence. There are also regionally focused organizations that target a specific region of the world, to help build and support the local community in a social cause.

An angel investor is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early stage, once or in a consecutive manner, and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital and provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.

Techstars is a pre-seed investor that provides access to capital, mentorship, and other support for early-stage entrepreneurs. It was founded in 2006 in Boulder, Colorado. As of January 2024, the company had accepted over 4,100 companies into its accelerator programs with a combined market capitalization of $106bn USD. Techstars operates accelerator programs in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

Super angel was a term used in the early 2010s to describe venture capital investors who had once been angel investors and subsequently raised small venture capital funds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">500 Global</span> U.S. startup accelerator

500 Global is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, California in February 2011. They expanded to a second class of 21 in June 2011 and a third class of 34 in October 2011.

Snapette is a location-based shopping mobile application and website that acts as a digital resource for shoppers, enabling users to find nearby stores, products, and exclusive offers. Snapette was founded in 2011 by Jinhee Ahn Kim and Sarah Paiji and has partnerships with stores in California, New York City, and London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AngelList</span> Website connecting startups, angel investors, and job-seekers

AngelList is a U.S. website for fundraising and connecting startups, angel investors, and limited partners. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge. Created by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">StartX</span> US non-profit startup accelerator

StartX is a non-profit startup accelerator and founder community associated with Stanford University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OwnLocal</span> American digital advertising startup

OwnLocal is an Austin, Texas-based digital advertising startup founded in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brad Feld</span>

Brad Feld is an American entrepreneur, author, blogger, and venture capitalist at Foundry Group in Boulder, Colorado, a firm he started with partners Seth Levine, Ryan McIntyre, and Jason Mendelson.

Barcelona Ventures is a seed accelerator and resource platform for European startups to get a foothold in Silicon Valley to connect with investors and expand into the US market. Barcelona Ventures provides mentoring programs, helps coordinate with US legal counsel, immigration services, access to investors, and a Silicon Valley network.

The Alchemist Accelerator is a venture-backed accelerator focused on the development of seed-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises. Alchemist's backers include Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Cisco, Siemens, GE, and Salesforce, among others. The accelerator seeds around 75 enterprise-monetizing ventures per year.

gener8tor is an American startup accelerator that operates in several US cities, including Madison, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. As of March 2017, gener8tor was ranked as the top 11th startup accelerator out of more than 150 accelerator programs in the United States by the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project.

David Lee is an American angel investor. Lee is best known for his former role at angel investment firm SV Angel, where he was the managing partner for several years. Lee's departure from SV Angel in May 2015 was widely reported and acrimonious, while investor and SV Angel partner, Ron Conway told fund investors that "Lee had breached his trust." Lee was named on Forbes Magazine's Midas list for the years 2014, and 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheryl Sew Hoy</span> Entrepreneur, speaker and angel investor


Cheryl Sew Hoy is an entrepreneur, speaker and angel investor, best known for being the founding CEO of the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC), a government-funded agency to support entrepreneurship in Malaysia and ASEAN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mach 37</span> American venture capital organization assisting startups

MACH37 is an American startup accelerator that was established in 2013 as a division of the Virginia-based Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) with funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia. In 2017 CIT partnered with VentureScope, a strategic innovation consultancy and venture firm, to revamp MACH37's operating model and curriculum. Following a successful partnership between CIT and VentureScope, MACH37 became fully owned and operated by VentureScope in 2020. MACH37 focuses primarily on honing and strengthening startups' product-market fit through extensive customer discovery and market research, expanding emerging companies' professional networks, fostering founder wellbeing, and providing emerging companies in the cybersecurity industry with access to investment capital and an immediate customer base. In an October 2020 article Forbes named MACH37 'the Granddaddy' of top cyber accelerators giving a nod to the fact that MACH37 was one of the first accelerators in the world dedicated to cyber and cyber adjacent technologies, and it has lasted far longer than many of its peer accelerators while strengthening over time. The name 'MACH37' is a reference to the escape velocity of Earth's atmosphere. VentureScope applies Lean Startup methodology at MACH37 as an efficient and successful approach to assist startups to rapidly adapt their search for a successful business model and test their hypotheses about customer needs and market demands.

Samer Karam is a Lebanese entrepreneur, investor, author, and activist. He founded Seeqnce, the first startup accelerator in Lebanon, created the Accelerate conference, and has had a leading role in building Lebanon's startup ecosystem and promoting, advising, mentoring, and investing in startup ecosystems across the world. World renowned tech journalist Monty Munford said Karam is "probably the most influential tech person across the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region."

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. Archived from the original on 2017-07-02. 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. ↑ Aragon, Lawrence (March 18, 2020). "500 startups founder launches VC secondaries fund". Secondary Investors. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  5. ↑ "From The Vault Dave McClure (500 Startups)". www.startupgrind.com. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  6. ↑ "Venture capitalist Dave McClure plays the odds when picking his next investment". The Hub. 2015-06-04. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  7. ↑ "Dave McClure, Master of 500 Hats". Web 2.0 Summit. Archived from the original on 2016-04-01. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
  8. ↑ "Dave McClure", LinkedIn profile.
  9. ↑ Rosoff, Matt (February 11, 2011). "Exclusive: The Controversial Dave McClure Tells All". Business Insider.
  10. ↑ Austin, Scott (January 20, 2011). "The Most-Read Blogs by Venture Capitalists". Wall Street Journal.
  11. ↑ Saint, Nick (October 4, 2010). "Who Are The Super Angels? A Comprehensive Guide". Business Insider.
  12. ↑ Maggie Shiels (September 23, 2010). "'Angelgate': A tech conspiracy?". BBC.
  13. ↑ "After Quiet Dinner, Angels Get Indigestion". New York Times. September 22, 2010.
  14. ↑ Benner, Katie (30 June 2017). "Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment". The New York Times . Archived from the original on 1 July 2017. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  15. ↑ "I'm a Creep. I'm Sorry. – 500 Hats". 500 Hats. 2017-07-01. Archived from the original on 2017-07-02. Retrieved 2017-07-02.
  16. ↑ Tang, Ashley (July 16, 2017). "Cheryl Yeoh: Why now, and why I'm not pressing charges". The Star. Archived from the original on 16 July 2017. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  17. ↑ "Exclusive: Dave McClure resigns as general partner of 500 Startups funds". Axios. 2017-07-03. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  18. ↑ Solon, Olivia; Levin, Sam (2017-07-04). "Top Silicon Valley investor resigns as allegation of sexual assault emerges". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077. Archived from the original on 2023-11-18. Retrieved 2023-11-18.
  19. ↑ Chapman, Lizette (March 25, 2019). "After a Sex Scandal, 500 Startups and Its Former CEO Plan Their Next Acts". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.