Arena Ventures Founder Paige Craig Leaves Venture Capital to Join Electric Scooter Startup Bird
Arena Ventures founder and general partner Paige Craig has a new startup gig. He has joined electric scooter company Bird as its head of U.S. city operations.
In January, Fortune reported that Arena Ventures, the Los Angeles-based early-stage venture capital firm, would pause seed investing "until the seed market corrects.” Craig sent a private letter to limited partners laying out concerns about the seed market -- high valuations, excessive capital supply, and imbalanced market forces.
It appears those concerns did not go away.
When asked whether he would be working on something else during Arena’s hiatus, Craig said "No, we're full time on Arena." Fortune contacted him today to ask what will happen to his VC firm, and he said, “We stopped seed investing last year, and Jeff [Lo, Arena co-founder] and I decided to oversee the portfolio, but will not make any new investments. I'm full time at Bird.”
Arena made investments in software-focused businesses based in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City. Arena's portfolio includes companies such as ClassPass, Plated, Reserve, and Laurel & Wolf.
While Craig said the seed market has become increasingly crowded and expensive, he joined a company that raised $15 million in Series A funding last month and $100 million in Series B this month at a valuation of about $300 million.
Craig’s new job will focus on helping Bird expand across the nation as the company expects to be in 50 U.S. markets by the end of 2018. Bird is already hitting some regulatory challenges. In February, it had to pay $300,000 in fines for obscuring the public right of way (undocked Bird scooters were left lying across a sidewalk, blocking a doorway or driveway) and operating without a proper commercial business license.
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