Rahul Sood
Rahul Sood

The guy in charge of making sure Microsoft connects with startup companies is leaving to build a new startup.

Rahul Sood, general manager of Microsoft Ventures and the former president of Voodoo PC, announced in a post on LinkedIn that he’s leaving to start a new gaming company called Unikrn. (pronounced Unicorn).

“Microsoft is an amazing place to work, it’s the one place where you can take on any challenge and thrive, we have a living founder who has dedicated his life to making the world a better place, and the people are just so damn smart,” wrote Sood in the post. “I am so thankful for this memorable life changing experience. I’m now ready to take my next step. Now that Microsoft Ventures is up and running and in a good place I think it’s about damn time for me to jump out and risk everything again.”

Sood said he’s proud of the progress made at Microsoft Ventures, which now operates startup accelerators all over the world. Prior to Microsoft, Sood started Calgary-based VoodooPC in 1991, which was sold to HP in 2006. He joined Microsoft in 2010, serving as a general manager in the Xbox gaming unit for a short period before moving into his role with The Bing Fund and Microsoft Ventures.

In September, Sood stirred a debate when he said in a Tweet that it was pointless to hold a Startup Weekend event just for women.

“WRT to my tweet – as long as we draw *extra* or even *exclusive* attention to race and gender separation it will continue to exist,” Sood told GeekWire. “Instead of a startup weekend for women, we should have a startup weekend solving big problems in a particular area that people care about – and we should encourage men & women of all ages to come out and support.

We’ve reached out to Sood — one of the judges for GeekWire’s “Seattle 10” startup competition — to learn more about Unikrn and where it will be based.

UPDATE: Sood tells us that he’s looking to raise $2.5 million for Unikrn, and he’s on the prowl for engineers in the Seattle area who “love to play games.”

“There’s never been a better time to build a company, and Seattle is the perfect place to do it,” Sood says. “We have too much talent here to ignore… and I guess once a founder always a founder.”

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