NEWS

Benchmark Gets New Blood for More Open Source

The451Group
February 15, 2008
By Jay Lyman

The M&A action around open source continues to thunder into 2008. While we’ve barely had a single week without a major acquisition or two involving open source, a new sign of activity emerged this week. Benchmark Capital is adding entrepreneurs to its ranks with a significant focus on open source.

Benchmark, already a big backer of open source ventures including Red Hat, MySQL, Hyperic, SpringSource and Zimbra, said this week it would be bringing on four new executives, two of whom would work to continue the firm’s success in open source. The new blood at Benchmark includes former Red Hat and JBoss executive Rob Bearden and Wily Technology founder Lewis Cirne. Bearden will evaluate new open source business opportunities, while Cirne will focus on open source and web infrastructure companies. The two, along with former Yahoo! HotJobs senior VP Dan Finnigan, were named Enterpreneurs in Residence (EIR). Keith Krach, who served as Benchmark’s very first EIR in 1996 before co-founding Ariba, will serve as Benchmark’s CEO in Residence.

The new players join some open source investment heavyweights, including Peter Fenton and Kevin Harvey, who have been behind investments in open source success stories including XenSource and MySQL. We knew Benchmark was focusing on opportunities in open source. It appears the firm sees no slowdown in those opportunities.