“We at 500 Startups Vietnam have no tolerance for this sort of behaviour,” said 500 Startups’s Vietnam team
It is very rare for women to speak up against the sexual harassments at workplaces by their boss, manager, or colleagues. This is because they are afraid of retaliation by the attacker. They fear the attacker would attempt to inflict damages to their reputation, or even physically harm them.
Since sexual harassments are a serious crime which could even ground a business, organisations across the world would try to hush up and sweep such matters under the carpet. Had the New York Times not run an article on the series of sexual assaults of women by VCs, the sexual harassment cases committed by Dave McClure, co-founder of 500 Startups, would have gone unreported.
As soon as the allegations against McClure surfaced, especially after 500 Startups’s other co-founder Christine Tsai blogged about them, more women entrepreneurs came out in the open against him, which eventually ended up in his resignation as a General Partner. The latest in the episode is by Cheryl Yeoh, former CEO of Malaysian accelerator MaGIC, who said she was sexually assaulted by McClure at her apartment nearly three years ago.
e27 reached out to a few of 500 Startups’s venture partners and portfolio companies in Southeast Asia and India for their comments, but only a handful of them chose to respond, while the rest either declined to comment or chose to keep mum.
Eric Cheng, CEO and Co-founder of Carsome, an online marketplace for used cars which was funded by 500 Startups, was one of the few to put forward a comment. “I believe Dave has taken the best way to resign. It’s the right thing to do. The company 500 Startups has nothing to do with individual behaviour. However, it’s paramount for them to put in place a workplace behaviour regulations. This also applies to all companies,” he said.
While Cheng’s response was diplomatic at best, 500 Startups’ Vietnam Partner Eddie Thai told us he needed time “to get information from the top management to review potential implications for our activities in the region, and to communicate with our LPs and team.”
“Binh Tran (the other Vietnam Partner) and I only heard about allegations three days ago, shortly after the NY Times article was published. We needed time to get information from 500 top management to review potential implications for our activities in the region, and to communicate with our LPs and team. We felt it would have been irresponsible for us to speak publicly before getting more information, and also irresponsible to have our stakeholders hearing our thoughts through public messages before hearing from us directly,” Thai told e27.
In the interim, 500 Startups’ Vietnam team posted a message on Facebook, which read:
Three days ago, we were made aware of behavior by Dave McClure, co-founder of 500 Startups, towards some number of women in the tech industry. After mention of one incident in a New York Times article, 500 Startups top management shared a blog post that they had already become aware of allegations a few months ago and had transitioned Dave out of day-to-day operations. Dave followed up a day later with his own blog post taking responsibility for his actions and apologizing to all affected. But as it became clearer that more needed to be done, Christine Tsai (co-founder and CEO of 500 Startups) asked for and received Dave’s resignation. Meanwhile, more incidents by Dave continue to surface.
We at 500 Startups Vietnam have no tolerance for this sort of behavior. We empathize greatly with those who are directly harmed by it every day, all around the world, in every industry. So to hear about it coming from someone “so close to home” makes it all the more disappointing and shocking to us.
That said, 500 Startups is much bigger than any one person. We have no reason to believe that there is a pattern of harassment at our company. Moreover, we think the company remains committed to our shared and enduring belief that innovation can come from anyone, anywhere. This belief is reflected in how half of our managing partners are women and more than 400 of our portfolio companies are female-founded. This is also reflected in a number of women coming out with their own stories of support. For example, as shared by Ran Ma (co-founder, Siren Care, Batch 18):
I believe that 500 Startups stood for and continues to stand as a bastion of inclusiveness in tech. 500 may have been founded by Dave McClure, but today, 500 is made up of 100+ diverse individuals, and 1000s of diverse founders. 500 serves as a vital source of early stage funding and a welcoming community for many female, minority, international, LGBTQ and otherwise underrepresented founders. Let us remember this.”
Such stories in no way condone or excuse Dave’s behavior. But they do serve as helpful reminders of our efforts, just as Dave’s behavior reminds us that there’s still a lot of work to do. We eagerly roll up our sleeves and get back to work.
Yours,
Team 500 Startups Vietnam.
We also contacted 500 Startups’ Thailand Partner Krating Poonpol, but he declined to comment, saying he was devastated by the allegations. “Sorry I could not give any interview. It is a tough time. I think Khailee Ng might be in a better position (to comment) as one of the Managing Partners,” he said.
Also Read: Ex-employee accuses TVF Founder of molestation; Startup denies allegations
We also contacted Shalini Prakash and Arnaud Bonzon (both Venture Partners at 500 Startups); Kelsey Cullen, Director of Public Relations for 500 Startups; and former India Partner Pankaj Jain for comments, but the emails sent to them did not elicit any response till the time of publishing this article.
We also reached out to co-founders of several of 500 Startups’s portfolio companies, including Dr. Geetha Manjunath of Niramai, but they have yet to respond to our mails.
(With contributions from Yon Heong Tung)
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Image Credit: karenr / 123RF Stock Photo
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