"We are pleased by the response of our limited partners and their trust inour ability to invest successfully and steadily through up and down cycles,"said Robert "Robin" Bellas, partner at Morgenthaler Ventures. Bellas addedthat some of the industry's most valuable companies were started duringeconomic downturns.

During the last liquidity cycle, Morgenthaler had five IPOs, including thetop-performing life science IPO of 2008 -- IPC The Hospitalist Company. Italso had ten noteworthy acquisitions ranging in value from $100 million toover $1 billion. The firm's track record helped place it on Forbes' Midas Listof 2008, which ranks the best dealmakers in high tech and life sciences.

Notable companies in Morgenthaler's current portfolio include: NexTag, thelargest independent online comparison-shopping site in the US; imeem, theworld's largest music-streaming site with 30 million unique visitors; OncoMedPharmaceuticals, a leading biotechnology company which announced a $1.4billion strategic agreement with GlaxoSmithKline; Satiety, a medical devicecompany offering an incision-less stomach volume-reduction solution fortreating obesity; and Cortina Systems, a leading supplier of intelligentcommunication IC solutions for worldwide markets.

Morgenthaler will continue to focus on early-stage investing with its newfund. Since 2001, more than two-thirds of its venture investments have beenmade in the seed or Series A rounds. Going forward, Bellas said thatMorgenthaler will broaden its focus to include more Series B and Series Cfinancings for companies that have achieved significant milestones.

MVP IX is a strategic change for the firm. Previous Morgenthaler fundshave made both venture and private equity investments out of the same fund.MVP IX is the first Morgenthaler fund to focus solely on venture capitalinvestments. The firm's Venture Team was allocated approximately $315 millionto invest in the previous fund (MP VIII). MVP IX therefore represents roughlya 30% increase in fund size for the Venture Team.

Morgenthaler's Buyout Team -- which announced the sale of its portfoliocompany, Mark Andy, to American Industrial Partners in mid October -- is basedin Cleveland, OH and Boston, MA. The firm has a policy that it will notcomment on current and future fundraising plans.

IT Investing -- Rebecca Lynn and Guido Appenzeller Join IT Team

Morgenthaler has added two young entrepreneurs to its InformationTechnology Team. It has named Rebecca Lynn as principal and Guido Appenzelleras entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR). Both are based in Menlo Park, CA. Lynn wasthe vice president of marketing at NextCard, the first issuer of online creditcards and one of the top-five largest online marketers of that time. Lynnrecently earned a joint JD/MBA degree from the Haas School of Business andBoalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. She alsoholds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Missouri. Lynn isalso an inventor and holds several issued patents. At Morgenthaler, she willfocus on investments in mobile communications, Internet services, digitalmedia and financial services.

Appenzeller is a co-founder of Voltage Security, a Morgenthaler portfoliocompany, where he served as chief technology officer and engineering manager,and helped grow the company to over 400 enterprise customers and over 1million licensed users. He also currently serves as a consulting assistantprofessor at Stanford University in the Computer Systems Lab. Appenzellerholds 15 issued or pending patents and was named a Technology Pioneer by theWorld Economic Forum in 2006. He holds a degree in physics from theUniversity of Karlsruhe in Germany and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computerscience from Stanford University.

Lynn and Appenzeller join the IT Team that now includes partners KenGullicksen, Drew Lanza, Gary Little, Gary Morgenthaler and Bob Pavey. "AddingRebecca and Guido to our team will strengthen our ties to emergingentrepreneurs in the Bay Area," said Gary Little. "Despite entrepreneurialefforts elsewhere in the world, we believe the best place to build major newventures with international scope continues to be Silicon Valley."

Life-Science Investing -- Doug Treco Joins LS Team

Morgenthaler's Life Science Team has named Doug Treco, Ph.D., as an EIR inits Boston office. Treco co-founded Transkaryotic Therapies, a multi-platformbiopharmaceutical company which was acquired in 2005 by Shire plc. He alsocurrently serves as a visiting scientist at the Department of MolecularBiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Treco has authored numerouspeer-reviewed publications and holds 35 US and European patents in the areasof protein production, gene mapping and gene therapy. He received a Ph.D. inbiochemistry and molecular biology from the State University of New York atStony Brook and performed his post-doctoral studies at Massachusetts GeneralHospital.

Treco joins the Life Science Team that now includes partners, RobinBellas, Jim Broderick, M.D., Ralph "Chris" Christoffersen, Ph.D., NassimUsman, Ph.D. (EIR) and Hank Plain. Plain joined Morgenthaler in 2007 aftermore than 25 years in the life science industry, including co-founding eightmedical device start-ups and directing the exits of four companies with acombined value well in excess of $1 billion.

According to partner, Chris Christoffersen, "The truly game-changingopportunities we see tend to be early stage. OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, forexample, offers so much potential as a new approach to cancer treatment thatit has attracted a $1.4 billion deal from GlaxoSmithKline, which we think isthe largest pre-clinical biotech licensing deal to date."

About Morgenthaler Ventures

Morgenthaler Ventures is a leading, national venture capital team withoffices in Menlo Park, CA; Boston, MA; and Boulder, CO. It concentrates itsinvestments in life sciences and information technology. Morgenthaler's LifeScience Team focuses on biotechnology and medical devices. Recent investmentsinclude: Ardian, Avidia, Cabochon, CardioMind, Catalyst Biosciences, Emphasys,ForSight Labs, IPC The Hospitalist Company, Morphotek, Moximed, OncoMedPharmaceuticals, Optiscan, Orexigen, Promedior, Satiety, Vertiflex and XTENT.

Morgenthaler's IT Team focuses on Internet, mobile, software and cleantech investments. Recent investments include BlueArc, Brion, Cortina, imeem,JasperSoft, Netli, NexTag, Nominum, Overture Networks, PeregrineSemiconductor, Unity Semiconductors and Voltage Security. The firm hasapproximately $2.6 billion under management and has funded more than 300companies over its 40-year history. For more information on Morgenthaler andits portfolio companies, please visit: www.morgenthaler.com/ventures.

SOURCE Morgenthaler Ventures