Harrington calls it quits

General Partner Jack Harrington is leaving Advanced Technology Ventures for personal reasons, PE Week has learned.

At ATV, Harrington was investing from the firm’s seventh fund (an $800 million vehicle formed in 2001). Harrington focused on the telecommunications sector and made investments in Alfalight, Wave 7, Visage Mobile and Anagran. He joined the firm in 2000 from network management software maker ObjectStream, where he was CEO.

Harrington cut his teeth at AT&T, where he worked his way up to vice president of Customer Business Management during an 11-year career. He moved to Lucent to focus on that company’s network systems business before taking the position at ObjectStream.

One of the factors that led to Harrington’s departure at ATV was his daily commute to the firm’s office in Palo Alto, Calif., according to an ATV investor. “The commute down was really getting to him.

Harrington could not be immediately reached for comment.

Harrington lives in the East Bay, which is about an hour and 45 minutes away from ATV’s headquarters, at best, if traffic conditions are ideal.

Still, it’s hard to imagine that a telecom investor has much going on these days. Consolidation in the U.S. wireless market makes it hard for a small startup to get sales traction. Plus, without a healthy IPO market, pouring money into a capital-intensive industry doesn’t make for attractive multiples.

Some investors have gotten around these problems by taking their show on the road. Norwest Venture Partners’ Promod Haque is spending more time in India, where telecommunications companies are investing in infrastructure and market consolidation hasn’t raised the barriers for innovative new companies.

Other investors have quit the sector altogether. Vinod Khosla, who made a fortune on the $8 billion sale of network equipment company Cerent to Cisco Systems, has focused on cleantech investing with his new firm.