Michael Arrington reportedly to launch “CrunchFund” to invest in startups

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/07/15/is-mike-arrington-launching-a-crunch-fund-to-fund-new-startups/

by tilt • 15 years ago

34 36 15 years ago

rsingel• 15 years ago

Someone recently wrote that you know you are in a bubble when reporters start their own startups. Maybe that should be revised to be "when reporters start their own venture funds."

(that said, this ain't the same as the last tech bubble, and the issues around Arrington/access/other angels are only going to get more and more complicated.)

vibrunazo• 15 years ago

Well, it's no exact science to measure whether there's another bubble or not. There's plenty of arguments for both sides.

But if someone as insightful as Michael Arrignton himself is willing to make this bet. Shouldn't this give you hint that maybe we're actually not in a bubble? Or at the very least, that a bubble bust is likely not imminent for the near future?

Imho, reading this news makes me a bit more hopeful.

rokhayakebe• 15 years ago

I disagree with tat someone's statement.

I think MA has more connections that could be beneficial to startups that most angels. I for one would give him ownership in exchange for introductions to people he knows.

I do not see what makes MA less qualified than most angel investors. He spent 5 years interviewing founders, being the first to learn about their ideas, seeing the ones he wasn't fond of (Twitter. Mike used to talk shit about Twitter, granted in a friendly way, all day long). I think he is very well placed to start his own angel fund.

If you can start the platform where companies like Mint launched, and have Marissa Mayer show up for your conference, I think you can launch a startup fund.

ecaron• 15 years ago

Agreed. If MG Siegler starts one I'm going to start stuffing my mattress. But Arrington deservingly should be seen as the business owner/CEO more than as a "reporter."

mhashim• 15 years ago

Did you forget about this guy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moritz

Not too shabby for a reporter.

timxpp• 15 years ago

Interesting. I guess each investment includes 10 free TC blog posts for the company ;-)

rwolf• 15 years ago

It's funny because it's unethical. With any luck, he'll get greedy and push the "reporting on companies I invest in" needle so far that it gets too noisey we stop reading (and posting everything he does on HN).

petercooper• 15 years ago

Where do you draw the line between someone mentioning their own company on their own blog and unethical conduct?

It's not as if it hasn't happened before. He used to write about Edgeio on TechCrunch without much of a problem: http://techcrunch.com/2007/12/06/edgeio-to-shut-down-in-the-...

molecule• 15 years ago

but does it have AOL Legal's stamp of approval?

coderdude4• 15 years ago

He's in a good position to do this. Connections and fame aside, he has the perfect avenue to give exposure to the startups he invests in. I think this is critical. Part of the reason why many tech startups "go big" is because they're given broad exposure and are shown in a good light from the beginning. For example, Y Combinator has Hacker News to promote their investments.

I've said before that without HN you probably wouldn't hear about very many YC companies. (I think I said something along the lines of "you simply don't front-page stories about every YC company on Reddit.") Michael Arrington will have TechCrunch to promote his investments and I think he will be able to give them a good chance for success if he promotes them well. You might also say that Arrington has TechCrunch and Hacker News given how easily TC front-pages around here.

vaksel2• 15 years ago

not really...the new Techcrunch is putting up a ton more stories...so the TC coverage won't be as useful, since it'll hit the 2nd page within a few hours.

coderdude4• 15 years ago

It's true that they have a high volume of stories but those stories are:

1) Shown to a huge number of people. Their traffic, I'm sure, dwarfs HN's traffic.

2) They have an enormous amount of people subscribed via RSS who will be able to read the news at their leisure.

3) Their stories are also shared via Facebook, Google+, Twitter, you name it.

4) TC articles make their way to HN and Reddit as well, providing additional exposure.

The second page of TechCrunch will still provide you with more than enough eye balls.

jmjerlecki• 15 years ago

It wouldn't be that difficult if he wanted to sticky a post.

dotBen• 15 years ago

Sure but that has conflict of interest all over it, and while Arrington can be as conflicted as he likes...

...a) people don't have to read TC and as the level of conflictedness for that site increases more and more people will stop reading it

...b) the conflict is at odds with Aol's wider aspiration to be a respected media outlet (Arriana Huffington, etc). At some point such 'exposure for self interest' will cross a line even Aol won't go - esp if they don't have some/any upside in the CrunchFund venture.

The worse situation is that you end up with Arrington as an investor and TC can't write about you because Aol decides it really is too much of a conflict. And other outlets won't write about you or they give you shit because they still perceive Arrington as a competitor. Worst of both worlds.

coderdude4• 15 years ago

I agree that he should be careful about the editorial conflict of interest issue. This is assuming he hasn't already cleared it with AOL. I do think that it is a conflict of interest, but in a similar sense that HN is run by YC and an inordinate amount of YC startup news is poured through here. I'm not saying that PG et al are causing this to happen directly, but it is not a coincidence.

I think the point I'm trying to make here is that you can't scold Arrington without acknowledging that this already happens -- either directly or indirectly.

philwelch• 15 years ago

the conflict is at odds with Aol's wider aspiration to be a respected media outlet (Arriana Huffington, etc).

What? Huffington Post, if you ever read it, is a left wing tabloid. It's filled with leftist propaganda, celebrity gossip, bad-women's-magazine style nonsense, and other crappy linkbaiting. Buying out Huffington is no way for Aol to become a "respected media outlet", it's a way for Aol to become a media outlet in the style of News Corp.

Yes, by traditional journalistic standards Arrington's fund would be a massive conflict of interest. But traditional journalistic standards are all but dead. And frankly, the only new development in the past decade is that people are no longer pretending otherwise.

prostoalex• 15 years ago

I dunno http://www.chubbybrain.com/investors/jack-michael-arrington/...

Scrockett• 15 years ago

Agree/Disagree -- Agree that CrunchFund ("CF") would have a great avenue to promote its investments through TC, but I think doing so is unethical. On the other hand, I think YC operating HN is completely fine. Here's why:

1) YC's primary business is being an accelerator. This business preceded HN. HN compliments YC's primary business, but doesn't undermine or corrupt it. Conversely, TC's primary business is an online tech blog/journal (and is often a launching pad for startups). CF would undermine the primary business (i.e., TC) by calling into question the legitimacy of all pieces written about CF investments.

2) HN is a online community/news aggregator -- i.e., no original pieces (other than comments). TC is a group edited blog/journal that publishes original content. This means that TC can write opinion pieces to promote its investments, while YC can only post links to third party pieces about its investments.

3) TC has a much deeper reach than HN. Although HN is wildly popular in the tech community, people outside the tech community are generally ignorant to its existence. TC on the other hand, is the place that many "normals" go to get their tech news -- so a biased piece about a CF investment would reach a much broader audience than a biased piece posted to HN.

When you combine these three factors, I think that TC having CF is unethical, but YC having HN is not.

jaredmck• 15 years ago

Why do people think PR and coverage is so important? It's not at all obvious to me that techcrunch has anything to do with who actually succeeds, they really don't do real coverage of early stage startups- it's just PR Newswire plus trolling authors. Yet so many founders seem to think it's important and even worth hiring a PR firm to get into techcrunch and other similarly thin tech content farm blogs. That techcrunch nofollows all outbound links says enough about how they think about your startup, no matter how cool it may be.

ChrisNorstrom• 15 years ago

PR and Coverage CAN BE very important. Everyone remember the Opera browser? Amazing little browser, fast, secure, first to implement quiet a few features. It was around before Firefox, before Safari, before Chrome, and as the other browsers grew in market share, Opera is still in last place. Why? My guess, lack of PR and coverage?

vaksel2• 15 years ago

I'm surprised he didn't do it sooner.

That said it just screams of me too, jumping on the bandwagon to cash in before it's too late

diogenescynic• 15 years ago

This reminds me of Glen Beck telling his audience to invest in gold.

orofino• 15 years ago

While I think the exposure would be great for startups, but his attitude and approach on things just seems to be toxic. I'm all for not beating around the bush on things, but I'm not sure I'd like someone like Arrington providing guidance (or even associated with me).

johnrob• 15 years ago

While he might be a fine advisor (I wouldn't know), I would assume his main value add is PR. He definitely knows that space inside and out.

cynusx• 15 years ago

so, is he still going to cover competitors of 'his' startups?

trotsky• 15 years ago

Why not cut to the chase and just offer a substantial block of positive Tech Crunch coverage for a fixed % of the startup?

kloncks• 15 years ago

CrunchFund.com, which according to the article was only recently registered, is about a product called CrewBuyer.

What is that?

rburton• 15 years ago

crewbuyer.com is a startup focused on group sales where members establish groups (otherwise known as a crew) to buy products. They have an setup that'll let members refer friends in return a 1% discount for each member referred.

I hope that helps.

fedd2• 15 years ago

what does "angel fund" mean? will it accumulate other angels' personal money? like Yuri Milner's...

Michael Arrington reportedly to launch “CrunchFund” to invest in startups

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