July 19, 2010

FirstMark Capital Adds New Venture Partners to its Investment Team

Deep Domain-Knowledge and Extensive Industry Networks Complement FirstMark Investment Team; Help Capitalize on Emerging Trends and Market-Disrupting Technologies

NEW YORK – July 19, 2010 – FirstMark Capital, an early stage venture capital firm investing in innovative technology and technology-enabled businesses, today announced the appointment of Andy Macdonald, Scott Switzer and Nick Marsh to its team of experienced venture partners. Macdonald, Switzer and Marsh join FirstMark venture partners Larry Wilson, Sterling Phillips and Shabbir Dahod.  Contributing decades of experience in specific industries and functions, FirstMark’s venture partners add unique skills and operational expertise to the firm’s investment team.  

FirstMark Capital invests in leaders and innovators of high-growth businesses in key technology markets.  The firm’s four general partners have been investing together for more than a decade and have built a reputation for identifying and nurturing market-leading companies. The partners leverage the operational skills, extensive networks and mentorship contributed by its team of venture partners to maintain a nimble and flexible investment staff, contributing to the growth of its existing market-leading portfolio of companies and seed-stage investments.  

“Our venture partners bring deep, industry-specific knowledge and real-world experience to the FirstMark team and serve as invaluable, strategic assets to the firm, our portfolio companies and our investors,” said Lawrence D. Lenihan, CEO and Managing Director of FirstMark Capital.

Andy Macdonald was a member of the founding management team of First Advantage. During his time at First Advantage, he served as President of the Employer Services Group, the largest global provider of pre-employment background and drug screening, the Investigative and Litigation Services Group and the Corporate Development Group.  First Advantage (NASDAQ: FADV) sold to First American (NYSE:FAF) in Q4 2009 for approximately $1.1B.  Currently, Macdonald is the President of CoreLogix’s Investigative and Litigation Services, a leader in electronic discovery.  He will focus on data and information services investments at FirstMark.

Nick Marsh will focus on consumer-oriented businesses at FirstMark, contributing his experience as a serial entrepreneur in the sector. He co-founded Xando which became Cosi, Inc. (NASDAQ: COSI) where he served as President and COO, ultimately growing the business to more than one hundred locations. Nick is an active investor and serves as Executive Chairman at Chop’t Creative Salad Company, Mendocino Farms Sandwich Market and Allcoast Media, the largest online community for saltwater fishing.

Scott Switzer is the founder of open source ad company OpenX, the world’s leading independent provider of ad technology for web publishers, offering its global community comprehensive, customizable ad-serving technology. OpenX Ad Server empowers more than 150,000 websites, and the company’s ad serving products are translated into 25 languages, used in more than 100 countries, and serve more than 300 billion ads monthly. Switzer will seek new investment opportunities and work closely with existing portfolio companies with online marketing, software architecture and open-source strategy initiatives.  Switzer is the co-founder of M3 Media Services Ltd and former CTO of Unanimis Group, an online media company acquired by France Telecom in 2009.  Previously, Switzer was a software developer/ architect for large medical information systems at IDX Systems Corporation (GE Healthcare).

In related news, FirstMark venture partner Shabbir Dahod was recently appointed CEO of TraceLink, a FirstMark Capital-backed company and the world’s first, industry-wide supply collaboration network.  At FirstMark, Dahod leverages his leadership experience with SaaS and enterprise business models and is on the board of Health Plan One, Klocwork and TraceLink. His return to the CEO post at TraceLink illustrates the lifecycle of FirstMark’s program, as venture partners will frequently move on to executive-level positions with FirstMark-backed companies.