Dave McClure To Launch Early Stage Venture Fund

Dave McClure has been investing in early stage startups for years. He is a direct angel investor in a half dozen or more startups, including Mint, Simply Hired, Mashery, TeachStreet and others. And he has invested in dozens more through fbFund, a $10 million Facebook investment fund backed by Founders Fund and Accel, and and FF Angel, a Founders Fund early stage fund.

Now, though, we’ve confirmed that he’s launching his own venture fund, and at least some limited partners are already on board. Like Chris Sacca, who launched his own lower case capital fund last year, McClure is turning from an angel investor (who spends his own money) to a more organized venture capitalist (investing on behalf of limited partners).

McClure won’t comment, but our sources say he’s raising at least a $10 million early stage fund that includes both an incubator for very early stage startups as well as a more traditional seed fund for larger investments. Investment sizes will range from $25,000 to $250,000, and the firm will focus on consumer Internet startups.

The fund will also plan to reserve cash for follow on investments. This gives entrepreneurs an extra assurance that the fund can see them through at least a sizable series A round of financing. And McClure is clearly going to be focusing on startups that take design and marketing seriously, if his recent blog post is any indication. He says “If investors don’t have operational backgrounds in design, development, or marketing from proven consumer internet companies, you probably don’t want their money.” McClure, of course, has deep experience in all of these things.

As far as we know the fund hasn’t been named yet and doesn’t yet have a website. But it is definitely already making investments in startups.