MENLO PARK, Calif., Oct. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Benchmark Capital, an early-stage technology venture capital firm, today announced that Michael Wolfe has joined the firm as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. This is the second time Wolfe has been an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Benchmark. His last Benchmark-backed company, Vontu, was acquired by Symantec in 2007. After the Vontu acquisition, Wolfe served Symantec in a broader role as Chief Technology Officer for the company's Enterprise Product Group.

"Benchmark is entirely dedicated to the entrepreneur's success, and they act on that by making substantial investments in the people they work with," said Wolfe. "That commitment, and the structure of the firm as an equal partnership, puts their focus on their investments and maximizes the entrepreneur's ability to achieve. I'm pleased with the opportunity to return to Benchmark."

Wolfe co-founded Vontu in 2001 while he was at Benchmark. He was first introduced to Benchmark when he was at Kana, Inc., a company that was backed by Benchmark and went public in 1999. During his tenure at Kana, Wolfe founded the engineering team, grew it to 150 developers, helped support over 1000 customers and oversaw development of products generating more than $200M in revenue. Prior to joining Kana, Wolfe was the founding engineer at I/PRO, a successful Internet media startup acquired by Engage, Corp. in 1999. He began his career as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, where he built equity derivative trading and analytic solutions.

"Michael possesses a rare combination of technical depth and management ability. Not only can he invent important products, but he can also run the operations needed to support them. And he's done it successfully three consecutive times," said Kevin Harvey, general partner, Benchmark Capital. "We're thrilled to welcome him back to Benchmark."

About Benchmark Capital

Benchmark Capital, an early-stage technology venture capital firm, was founded in 1995 to help talented entrepreneurs with original ideas build successful technology companies. Benchmark's general partners take a team-oriented, labor-intensive approach to venture investing to deliver a superior level of service to the firm's portfolio companies. Benchmark's portfolio includes high-profile start-ups such as Twitter, Second Life, Yelp, and Zillow, recent exits such as Infinera, MySQL, OpenTable, and Tellme, and franchise companies such as eBay, Juniper Networks and Red Hat. The firm manages nearly $2.8 billion in committed venture capital. For more information on Benchmark Capital, visit its website at www.benchmark.com.

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SOURCE Benchmark Capital

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