Read about Michael Dearing from Kara’s Boom town, and it made me think that this is quite a figure that I would like to meet in the near future. 
So just to take a note of it:
Anyone paying attention to the heated-up acquisition market in Silicon Valley knows all about AdMob, the mobile advertising start-up acquired by Google for $750 million last November.
Or Xoopit, the social email firm, which Yahoo (YHOO) bought last summer for $20 million.
Or Mixer Labs, creator of GeoAPI, which Twitter picked up in December.
And then, there’s last week’s purchase of social search phenom Aardvark by Google (GOOG) for a reported $50 million.
What a lot of people might not know is the prescient but very low-profile angel investor all these companies have in common: Michael Dearing (pictured here).
The former top exec at eBay (EBAY), who has worked at Bain & Company as well as Disney (DIS), is now a Stanford University professor.
From Harrison Metal’s front page:
Harrison Metal invests in early stage, technology driven businesses led by exceptional entrepreneurs.
We look for unique combinations of leaders and ideas seeking to
Create extraordinary value in the daily lives of users
Compete in large markets in transition
Capture a share of the value created through a sound economic model
Build a team of creative, results driven, thinking people
From my perspective, Michael Dearing sounds like 江南春 in China, who has successfully invested in several IPO companies at their early stage.
