TechCrunch founder starts venture fund

Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, will be stepping down as managing editor of the popular the technology blog. However, he won’t be straying from the technology space.

Arrington will be starting a new fund, aptly named CrunchFund, to invest in early-stage start-ups — many of which will undoubtedly continue to be covered on his popular blog. Arrington’s partner in the fund is Patrick Gallagher, who has been a partner at VantagePoint Capital Partners since 2008.

“Mike will run the fund and will continue to write for TechCrunch, but will have no editorial oversight,” said Mario Ruiz, a spokesman for AOL, which bought TechCrunch last year.

Arrington, who has long been well-connected in Silicon Valley, has been an angel investor in the past, but stopped making investments in 2009 after acknowledging a perceived conflict as both publisher and investor. However, in April he announced that he would resume investing in start-ups again.

“Michael Arrington operates from a unique position,” an AOL spokesman said in a statement. “He was an investor in technology companies and start-ups before he started TechCrunch, and his extensive knowledge of, and involvement with Silicon Valley is one of the very things that has made TechCrunch a must-read site.”

Arrington has a pending investment with Airbnb, which TechCrunch disclosed in a recent blog post.