About Dave McClure

[Short Bio]

Dave McClure is a venture capitalist & founding partner at 500 Startups, an internet startup seed fund and incubator program in Mountain View, CA. He likes to hang out with entrepreneurs, and occasionally invest in startups foolish enough to let him. He has been an investor in over 250 companies including Mint.com, Twilio, Wildfire Interactive, SendGrid, TaskRabbit, SlideShare, Mashery, CreditKarma, KISSmetrics, and MakerBot, among others.

Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and has worked with companies such as PayPal, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twilio, Mint.com, Simply Hired, O'Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft. Years ago he used to do real work like coding or marketing or running conferences, but these days he mostly does useless stuff like sending lots of email, blogging, and hanging out on Facebook and Twitter.

Dave also likes to play ultimate frisbee when his knees don't hurt.

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[Not So Short Bio]

Dave McClure is a venture capitalist and founding partner at 500 Startups, an internet startup seed fund & incubator program headquartered in Mountain View, CA. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor & investor, blogger, and internet marketing nerd.

Dave's passion is helping startups with product & marketing strategy, and he is regular speaker on technology & entrpreneurship topics such as startup metrics. He has invested in over 250 startup companies including: Mint.com (acquired by Intuit), CreditKarma, MakerBot, Mashery, Sendgrid, Simply Hired, SlideShare, TeachStreet (acquired by Amazon), Twilio, TaskRabbit, and Wildfire Interactive, among others. He also runs conferences and events on technology, marketing, design, & entrepreneurship such as SMASHsummit & WarmGun.

From 2008 thru 2010, Dave managed the FF Angel seed investment program for Founders Fund, and ran the 2009 fbFund REV incubator program on behalf of Facebook, Accel Partners, & Founders Fund. From 2006 thru 2008 Dave was an advisor and consultant to several startups including Mint.com; co-chaired technology & startup conferences for O'Reilly Media; and helped teach the nation's first-ever class on Facebook and social networking platforms at Stanford University in 2007. From 2005 thru 2006 Dave ran marketing for job search engine Simply Hired. From 2001 thru 2004, Dave was Director of Marketing at PayPal (acquired by eBay in 2002), where he started the PayPal Developer Network program. Prior to PayPal, Dave was a database consultant & programmer for several companies, including Microsoft and Intel. In 1994 he founded Aslan Computing, an internet & e-commerce consulting group later acquired by Servinet / Panurgy in 1998.

Dave is the co-founder of Startup2Startup, a regular get-together for Silicon Valley startup entrepreneurs & investors. He leads a travel group called GeeksOnaPlane to promote cultural exchange & education for tech entrepreneurs around the world. Dave helped co-found the StartupVisa program to reform & improve US immigration policy for entrepreneurs. He has been a boardmember for microfinance accelerator Unitus and advisor to microfinance lender Kiva, education lender Vittana, remote work platform SamaSource, & co-founder of the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network.

Before coming to Silicon Valley, Dave barely graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with a BS Engineering in Mathematical Sciences and a minor in frisbee, billiards, & foosball. His interests include microfinance and economic innovation, entrepreneurship and venture capital, ultimate frisbee, cartoons and animation, and an ever-growing collection of funny-looking hats.

For more info visit Dave's LinkedIn profile or his blog: Master of 500 Hats.

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[Community / Personal Interest]

Think Globally.  Dave has been an enthusiastic supporter of microfinance & microcredit. In 2004 Dave began helping Unitus, a venture accelerator for microfinance institutions around the world, to help spread awareness in the SF Bay Area & to educate people on the tremendous opportunity Unitus sees to eradicate poverty in our lifetime. Dave served as a Unitus board member from 2005 thru 2009. In 2006 Dave became an advisor to Kiva.org, an internet-based microfinance startup that helps lend money to entrepreneurs & the working poor in developing countries. In 2009 Dave became an advisor to Vittana, which enables access to peer-to-peer education loans for students around the world, and to SamaSource, which helps provide computer-based work to women, youth, and refugees living in poverty in Africa.

Act Locally.  In 2005, Dave became a founder & board member for the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN), a local user group that covers topics & issues in microfinance. In 2004 Dave joined the Full Circle Fund, a non-profit foundation dedicated to helping people in the local SF Bay Area with specific issues in Education, Affordable Housing, and Technology Access. Dave has previously been a member of Full Circle's Technology Impact Circle.

Other Stuff: Dave lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he landed after barely graduating from the Johns Hopkins University in 1988 with a BS in Mathematical Sciences Engineering and a minor in frisbee, billiards, and foosball. His interests and hobbies vary widely, including microfinance and economic innovation, entrepreneurship and venture capital, jazz and classical music, politics and business, numerous sports and games, ultimate frisbee, cartoons and animation, and an ever-growing collection of funny-looking hats...