Dave McClure

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.

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.

McClure founded Aslan Computing, a technology consultancy, in 1994, andsold 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. He then 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 startupsusing Facebook Platform & Facebook Connect.

In 2010, McClure founded 500 Startups ,a seed accelerator and related investment fund.

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.

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.

Angelgate

In September of 2010, Dave was involved with Angelgate.