The directors of Foundry Group, a Boulder, CO-based venture firm, have signed on as supporters of the Alliance for Open Competition, a group lobbying to outlaw the use of non-compete clauses in employment agreements in Massachusetts and other states.

The alliance, founded last year by partners at Boston’s Spark Capital, argues that the non-compete clauses imposed by many Massachusetts employers stifle innovation by preventing entrepreneurs with good ideas from setting up new businesses that might be seen as competing with those of their former employers. Such agreements are unenforceable in California—a fact that may aggravate brain drain from New England to the West Coast, in the view of many people active in the local entrepreneurial scene.

Today Foundry managing directors Brad Feld, Seth Levine, Jason Mendelson, and Ryan McIntyre added their names to the list of venture capital partners supporting the alliance. Spark partner Bijan Sabet announced the additions in a Twitter post today.

But why would a Colorado firm care about non-compete clauses in Massachusetts? I pinged both Sabet and Feld today for answers.

In an e-mail, Feld explained: “Since we invest all over the US (including MA) we are motivated both by MA specific reasons as well as our strongly held beliefs that broad-based non-compete agreements are inhibitors of innovation.”

And as Sabet pointed out, Feld is a founding member of TechStars, a Colorado-born startup incubator program that recently opened a Boston branch. “So he cares about this state,” Sabet said.

Here’s a rundown of all VC partners who have now joined the Alliance for Competition:

Bijan Sabet, General Partner, Spark Capital
Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group
Dennis Miller, General Partner, Spark Capital
Gwill York, General Partner, Lighthouse Capital Partners
Jeff Fagnan, General Partner, Atlas Venture
Michael Feinstein, Managing Director, Sempre Management
Michael Greeley, General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners
Mike Tyrell, General Partner, Venrock
Jason Mendelson Managing Director, Foundry Group
Paul Conway, General Partner, Spark Capital
Paul Maeder, General Partner, Highland Capital
Ryan McIntyre, Managing Director, Foundry Group
Santo Politi, General Partner, Spark Capital
Seth Levine, Managing Director, Foundry Group
Todd Dagres, General Partner, Spark Capital

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Bijan Sabet is continuing his crusade against non-compete clauses. Sabet, a partner at Boston’s Spark Capital, caused a stir back in December, when he wrote on his blog that Spark would no longer require its portfolio companies to include non-compete clauses in their employee contracts. “The non-compete clause is a significant barrier to startups and innovation,” Sabet wrote. “I believe it significantly hurts business in the state of Massachusetts and other states that have not followed California on this issue.”

Today, Sabet is the author of a guest column on the GigaOm blog entitled, “When Did You Become Someone Else’s Intellectual Property?” It provides a quick, fresh look at his arguments against the non-compete, a movement he is trying to grow through the Alliance for Open Competition, an organization he co-founded that describes itself as “a group of entrepreneurs, investors and executives dedicated to fostering innovation throughout the US.”

As Sabet writes in GigaOm, “Every day, venture capitalists like me see the chilling effect that employer non-compete agreements have on innovation. In dozens of states, the most brilliant contributors are locked out of joining new opportunities in their field of expertise for a year, sometimes even longer.

“Promising startups are dead in the water to investors if there’s a hint of non-compete trouble in the mix. This is not a trivial matter: The vitality of a region’s economy—and ultimately the country—is driven by the ability to bring new ideas to market, faster. Non-competes put the brakes on innovation and job creation, and the effects are felt far beyond the VC community.”

Wade did this in-depth interview with Sabet in December. And you can find his personal blog here.

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