Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian leaves Initialized Capital

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is leaving Initialized Capital, the venture capital firm he co-founded with Gary Tan in 2012.

The news was first reported by Axios on Friday and TechCrunch has since confirmed it. Ohanian’s decision to leave Initialized Capital comes just weeks after he publicly stepped down from Reddit’s board of directors.

According to Axios, Ohanian’s interests have shifted from seed-stage investing to pre-seed investing. To date, Initialized Captial’s focus has been on traditional seed-stage investing. For those unfamiliar, seed-stage funding focuses on growing an already established business or startup whereas pre-seed investing focuses on solidifying a founding team and developing a business plan.

Ohanian reportedly plans to remain involved with existing Initialized Capital’s portfolio companies, though he won't make any new investments with the firm.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Initialized Capital explained Ohanian is leaving the firm to work on “a new project that will support a generation of founders in tech and beyond.” At this time, there’s no word on what that project entails specifically.

Ohanian and Tan co-founded Initialized Capital in 2012. In 2014, Ohanian took a step back from the firm and returned to his position at the helm of Reddit. He then returned to Initialized Captial on a full-time basis in 2018 and joined its board of directors. Ohanian’s deals at Initialized Capital have included Goat, Ro and Patreon.

Leaving Initialized Capital isn’t the only career move Ohanian has made this month. He publicly announced his decision to step down from Reddit’s Board of Directors earlier this month. Ohanian announced his decision to resign on Twitter and called on the company to elect a black board member to his seat. Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel has since been elected to the position.