Brian O’Malley may be the most-poached venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. While rising through the ranks at the global investment firm Battery Ventures, where O’Malley had led deals in Hotel Tonight among others, he was plucked out of the firm by Accel Partners in 2013, where both O’Malley and Accel thought he could be even more successful.
Fast-forward five years and O’Malley is announcing today (through Forbes) that he just joined Forerunner Ventures, the top e-commerce investing firm launched in 2010 by founder Kirsten Green.
That O’Malley is willing to make moves is hardly a knock. For someone whose job it is to create and manage promising portfolios, he seems to be managing his career with that same, smart mindset.
The move also reflects well on Forerunner, a much younger firm than storied Accel but whose star has been soaring in recent years, thanks to early bets on companies like Bonobos (sold to Walmart), Jet.com (sold to Walmart), Dollar Shave Club (sold to Unilever) and Hotel Tonight, among other growing brands, including the cosmetics company Glossier, the athleisure-wear company Outdoor Voices and the home furnishings company Serena & Lily.
Indeed, though Forerunner seems to be doing just fine with its current team, one can imagine that adding O’Malley to its ranks will only make fundraising easier — and our bet is the firm is fundraising right around now, based on the close of its current, third, fund in the summer of 2016.
You can learn more about O’Malley’s newest move here. In the meantime, if you’re interested in some of what’s involved in switching firms in Silicon Valley, O’Malley gave us some great insight into these moves back in 2015, when he discussed what a VC needs to factor in when joining a new team, what happens to his or her board seats and much more.
from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2tu1zLj
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