Shervin Pishevar Joins Menlo Ventures as Managing Director

MENLO PARK, CA--(Marketwire - Jun 13, 2011) - Shervin Pishevar, a successful technology entrepreneur, angel investor and most recently the chief applications officer and general manager of Mozilla Corporation -- the developer and disseminator of the Firefox web browser -- joined Menlo Ventures today as a Managing Director.

Pishevar, 37, will focus primarily on investments in the consumer Internet and mobile spaces, the 35-year-old premier venture firm announced.

Prior to his executive position at Mozilla, Pishevar was Executive Chairman, CEO and founder of Social Gaming Network (SGN), one of the largest developers of mobile social games, recently acquired by Mindjolt. Pishevar has co-founded several companies reaching over 100 million cumulative users, including SGN, Webs.com, Hyperoffice and Hotprints and has raised over $50m for these companies.

Pishevar also has had success as an angel investor, having invested in more than 40 startups. One company in which he invested, Milo.com, a shopping search engine that lets users find out what is in stock at local stores, was acquired by eBay in 2010 for $75 million. Another of his companies, Aardvark, a social search service, was acquired by Google for $50 million in 2010. Both companies provided investors with top-tier returns.

Other companies in which Pishevar has invested include Likealittle, Klout.com, Qwiki, Votizen, Milk, Yobongo, Gowalla, Sprucemedia, Medialets and SolveMedia.

Shawn Carolan, a Managing Director of Menlo Ventures, said Shervin Pishevar is an enormously talented and experienced investor who will be an incredible asset to Menlo Ventures. "We have known Shervin for years and he knows us well and believes in our values," Carolan said. "Given his success as an entrepreneur and investor, we know Shervin will add both breadth and depth to our investment bench."

Pishevar joined the Menlo Ventures team because it represents the very best of classic, deep-rooted American business investment values. "Menlo is about investing in great founders and teams building the foundational companies of the 21^st century," Pishevar said. "We believe that exceptional founders are some of the heroes of our time because they create value and opportunity."

"We are entering a unique and historic era where great founders and teams can build huge companies at unprecedented speed and scale," Pishevar added. "Menlo will help them meet their needs as they grow and help remove any obstacles to growth."

Pishevar founded his first company, WebOS, at the age of 23. He went on to start or co-found a number of other successful companies, including SGN, a leading social and mobile gaming company; Webs, one of the world's largest social publishing communities; Hotprints, a photo printing company; and Hyperoffice, a leading SaaS provider for small businesses.

Menlo Ventures has already had substantial success in the consumer Internet sector and will invest in it even more aggressively with Pishevar's help. Menlo-backed Siri, the maker of a virtual personal assistant for iPhone and iPod, was acquired by Apple in April 2010. Another Menlo-financed startup, PlaySpan, a virtual goods monetization platform, was acquired by Visa earlier this year for over $190 million. Menlo-backed TeleNav, a mobile phone navigation service, went public last year. Other strong Menlo-backed consumer Internet companies are Carbonite, a provider of online PC backup for consumers that just filed an S-1, SpeedDate.com, Roku and IMVU.

Menlo has also had exceptional winners in the storage market such as 3Par, a maker of systems and storage acquired by Hewlett-Packard last year for $2.35 billion, and Acme Packet, which was the fourth best-performing technology stock in 2010.

Pishevar becomes the eighth Managing Director of Menlo Ventures. In addition to Shawn Carolan, he joins Douglas Carlisle, John Jarve, H. DuBose Montgomery, Sonja Hoel Perkins, Mark Siegel and Pravin Vazirani.

About Menlo Ventures

Menlo Ventures provides technology venture capital funding for seed, early stage and growth companies. Menlo Ventures is based in Silicon Valley and invests in consumer Internet, mobile, communications infrastructure, enterprise, security and storage. Since its founding in 1976, the firm has invested successfully in more than 360 companies, including 3PAR, Ironport Systems, Siri, Playspan, Coraid, and Vidyo. Its past and current portfolio includes more than 70 public companies and more than 100 mergers or acquisitions. It has $4 billion under management and is currently investing Menlo Ventures XI, a $400M fund. For more information, www.menloventures.com.