Ron Hirson, the co-founder and president of mobile payments company BOKU, is stepping down from his full-time position at the company. Hirson is leaving to take on entrepreneur-in-residence roles at two separate venture capital firms, Khosla Ventures and Mayfield Fund, according to an announcement issued by the company today.
Hirson played a part in building the original BOKU product back in 2009 and has been one of the company’s more prominent public faces alongside CEO Mark Britto. But in the meantime, Hirson has also been quite active in advising other startups, such as personal investment app SigFig and password management service PasswordBox.
This will also not be Hirson’s first turn as an EIR, or his first time working at Khosla: For several months back in the spring of 2009, he served as an entrepreneur in residence at the firm, according to Hirson’s LinkedIn profile. So in many ways this looks to be a natural move in accordance with Hirson’s interests.
When reached by TechCrunch, Hirson offered the following statement on his plans for the future:
“BOKU is an amazing organization, and poised for an incredible 2013. I’m excited to work on my next project alongside some of the best investors in Silicon Valley at Khosla and Mayfield.”
Hirson is not walking away from BOKU entirely. He will continue to serve on the company’s board and steer its strategy in an advisor role, the company says. Additionally, BOKU says that it has beefed up its executive team in recent months with leaders who will fill in any gaps from Hirson’s departure: Jon Prideaux has joined from Visa to run business development, Adam Lee has joined from Intuit to run product, and Ray Ramillosa has joined from Visa to run marketing.
BOKU has raised a total of $73 million in venture capital funding from NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Index Ventures, DAG Ventures, and others.