More women are speaking up about being sexual harassed by 500 Startups’ Dave McClure

Dave McClure announced today on his personal Twitter account that he has resigned from his position as General Partner of 500 Startups, following a sexual harassment allegation made by entrepreneur Sarah Kunst in a New York Times piece over the weekend.

Prior to the announcement of his resignation from GP position, McClure had relinquished his role as CEO of the venture capital firm. He was replaced by co-founder Christine Tsai.

In a statement, McClure mentioned that his resignation was due to Tsai’s request and will be effective “immediately.”

He also called for support for Tsai and 500 Startups.

According to a TechCrunch report, Tsai and the management team wrote in a letter to LPs that “it is in the best interest of the long-term success of 500 for Dave to step down completely from all GP entities and the firm overall.”

She also stated that 500 Startups has been made aware of another sexual harassment report against McClure, which it has investigated and determined that his behaviour was “unacceptable.”

As the company “cannot be certain” that there will not be any similar cases in the future, it has agreed with McClure for him to resign.

Following the New York Times report, more women had begun to speak up about their own experiences with McClure and other leading executives in the tech industry.

In Southeast Asia, former MaGIC CEO Cheryl Yeoh had also came out as one of McClure’s victims.

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McClure has also written an apology letter in a Medium post, where he admitted to his wrong-doings and mentioned that he has been undergoing therapy for his behaviour in the past one month.

In handling the situation, 500 Startups has also come under fire as it was revealed in another TechCrunch report that the company had not disclosed the internal investigation on McClure’s cases to its Australia-based LP LaunchVic.

The company has since apologised for this incident.

500 Startups partner and accelerator lead in Mountain View, Elizabeth Yin, had also protested the company’s “lack of transparency” in handling the case.

She claimed that it did not disclose that the changes in management made in May due were due to sexual harassment investigations, and that the company had even denied such incident from happening.

Yin resigned from her position on Friday.

The post Dave McClure steps down as 500 Startups GP following sexual harassment reports appeared first on e27.