StartX co-founder kindles career at Spark

John Melas-Kyriazi (pictured), co-founder of the Stanford-affiliated StartX Fund, is to leave the student-led accelerator’s investment fund to join Spark Capital as an associate at its Boston offices.

Melas-Kyriazi originally joined the StartX accelerator, founded in 2009 by students to back start-ups launched by classmates, as a partnerships director in 2012. He later left his PhD at Stanford in September 2013 to co-found the StartX Fund, which was given a $1.2m annual operating grant from Stanford University and Stanford Hospital and Clinics.

Spark Capital’s portfolio include many well-known websites such as Tumblr, Foursquare, Twitter and Upworthy. It is currently managing four funds worth a total of $1.5bn, with its latest fund being the largest at $450m.

Melas-Kyriazi’s focus at Spark will be on consumer health IT, education technology, collaborative consumption, and financial technology.

He explained that his departure from the fund is bittersweet and that “StartX is making incredible progress, and their program is growing rapidly and supporting entrepreneurs across a variety of different industries, including consumer tech, medtech, hardware, and more.”