Spark Capital signs up Zynga GM

Investment firm Spark Capital has appointed former Zynga general manager Nabeel Hyatt as its first venture partner.

"As you could imagine I thought about this decision rather carefully. I've been an entrepreneur as long as I've been anything, and I still have boundless energy to work in start ups," said Hyatt in his blog.

"For me it felt like time to see if I could shift my focus from building a single company to impacting the broader ecosystem. Joining Spark now provides me with an amazing opportunity to empower entrepreneurs who are passionate, innovative and out to change things forever."

During his time at Zynga Hyatt worked at the social gaming company's Boston offices, which recently released Adventure World.

"As more start ups are getting started, the friction has shifted up a level. We need for entrepreneurs to be able to stick with a start up, become CEOs, figure out how their product development scales, and get past the "initial traction" phase," he continued.

"Its a difficult transition, one that I struggled with in my twenties at internetsoccer/Teamtalk, as the company grew from 6 to 300 in a little over a year. More recently for a little under two years at Zynga this same question of how to scale while still being able to maintain an entrepreneurial culture was a constant focus."

In 2007 Hyatt founded Conduit Labs, which was sold to Zynga in 2010. He's also acted as a mentor in the TechStars programme and to Schematic Labs.

"We are delighted to welcome Nabeel to Spark. We have known and admired him for years," added GM Todd Dagres.

"He is an authentic entrepreneur and a great complement to the team."