Prominent VC Is Ousted From His Firm as College Scandal Spreads
The U.S. charged dozens of parents this month after Rick Singer, a college admissions coach accused of leading the scam.
(Bloomberg) -- Chris Schaepe, co-founder of top Silicon Valley venture capital firm Lightspeed, left his post after acknowledging he hired the man at the center of the admissions scandal still roiling the world of higher education.
The U.S. charged dozens of parents this month after Rick Singer, a college admissions coach accused of leading the scam, cooperated with federal agents on a sting that led to arrests of wealthy and powerful figures and tainted some of the nation’s most elite schools.
Schaepe was not named among the people charged. In an emailed statement, Schaepe said he didn’t know Singer was doing anything illegal. Lightspeed -- an early backer of Grubhub Inc., Nest and Snap Inc. -- said it decided to part with its co-founder to minimize impact from personal matters unrelated to the firm.
“The Schaepes were deeply disturbed that the person they had trusted to guide them through the college application process was engaged in inappropriate acts,” a spokesman for the family wrote. “Like countless other families, they believed that his services and his foundation were all above board, and were shocked by his deception.”
Schaepe helped start Lightspeed in 2000. A series of hits, culminating with the initial public offering of Snap in 2017, launched Lightspeed into the top echelon of VC firms. It now has more than $6 billion under management. Schaepe’s investments focused on technical infrastructure and computational biology, and he has been featured about a dozen times on Forbes’ Midas List of top VCs.
Axios and the Los Angeles Times reported Schaepe’s departure earlier Wednesday. Lightspeed said Schaepe notified the partners that he had hired Singer to help his son gain admission to the University of Texas. The U.S. filed a criminal complaint this month saying the school’s now-fired tennis coach Michael Center took bribes from Singer. Neither Schaepe nor his son were named in that complaint.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lizette Chapman in San Francisco at lchapman19@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, Anne VanderMey
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