Michael Arrington, the founder and managing editor of the tech news site TechCrunch, has resigned as managing editor of the site so that he can run a venture capital fund that will invest in startup tech companies.
Scott Austin of The Wall Street Journal writes, “‘Mike will run the fund and will continue to write for TechCrunch, but will have no editorial oversight,’ said AOL spokesman Mario Ruiz. Erick Schonfeld, who has served as co-editor in New York, will become interim editor while AOL searches for a replacement for Arrington, Ruiz said.
“It’s not immediately clear the fate of AOL’s venture capital arm, AOL Ventures, which has made recent seed investments in start-ups such as spam-defense company Imperium and price-tracking service Shopobot.
“Arrington’s new fund, called CrunchFund, closed today with $20 million, according to people familiar with the situation. AOL leads the limited partner group, which includes a long roster of venture firms that kicked in $1 million each: Austin Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Sequoia Capital. Several individuals contributed money as well, including Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, general partners at Benchmark Capital, angel investors Ron Conway and Kevin Rose, and Yuri Milner, founder of Russian firm DST Global.
“Arrington’s partner in the fund is Patrick Gallagher, who has been a partner at VantagePoint Capital Partners since 2008.”
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