Meritech Capital Partners Adds Craig Sherman

Late-stage venture investor Meritech Capital Partners has added Craig Sherman as a managing director. Sherman was most recently chief executive of social gaming and online community company Gaia Interactive. Earlier in his career, he served as entrepreneur-in-residence at Benchmark Capital, and as chief operating officer at Ancestry.com. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Meritech has $2.6 billion under management.

PRESS RELEASE
Meritech Capital Partners, a leading late-stage venture capital firm, today announced that Craig Sherman has joined the firm as a Managing Director.

Craig was most recently chief executive officer of Gaia Interactive, a 25 million+ monthly unique pioneer and leader in social games and online communities including Gaiaonline.com, Gonline.com, and Monster Galaxy. Prior to joining Gaia, Craig served as entrepreneur-in-residence at Benchmark Capital. Previously, Craig was chief operating officer of Ancestry.com (ACOM), where he helped grow the company from $10 million to $150 million in sales. Before Ancestry.com, Craig held senior positions at American International Group, where he ran marketing for all divisions of AIG in Japan and Korea. In addition, he managed the region’s highest margin subsidiary, where he tripled the company’s growth rate during his tenure. Previous to AIG, Craig was chief executive officer of Cendant Japan, a joint venture he founded with Cendant and Mitsubishi Corporation that he grew from inception to over $20 million in sales and profitability.

“Craig combines a passion for investing with deep and varied operating experience,” said Paul Madera, Managing Director at Meritech. “He loves to help management teams grow their companies and he’s built a reputation as one of the most helpful and trustworthy advisors to CEOs in Silicon Valley. We have known him over the past several years and value his experience and judgment, as well as his extensive personal network. Craig will be a strong addition to our investment team and he will spearhead Meritech’s Consumer Internet and Digital Media practice, where Meritech has invested in category leaders like Facebook, PopCap Games, Tremor Media, Wonga and Zipcar.”

“Having Craig as a board member at Homestead was immensely valuable on both a professional and personal level” said Justin Kitch, former CEO of Homestead. “There’s nothing more important to a CEO than having smart and courageous advisers who aren’t afraid to speak the truth while never letting you forget that they are still in your corner.”

Craig has personally invested in over a dozen startups including Ancestry, SurveyMonkey, Zillow and Zipcar. In addition, Craig held independent board and advisory roles with Homestead (prior to its sale to Intuit), Kongregate (prior to its sale to GameStop), Logoworks (prior to its sale to Hewlett Packard), Netquote (prior to its sale to BankRate), and Photobucket (prior to its sale to Fox). Craig graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University.

About Meritech Capital Partners
Meritech Capital is a leading provider of late-stage venture capital to category-defining private technology companies, and has been one of the top performing venture firms of the past decade. With over $2.6 billion under management, Meritech primarily leads investments into portfolio companies of leading early-stage venture capital firms and looks for companies with proven and differentiated technology, rapidly-growing revenue and experienced management teams. With one of the most active venture portfolios, Meritech has experience in, and provides guidance on issues facing rapidly growing companies including management incentive plans, IPO market timing and positioning, M&A strategies and negotiations and adviser selection. Meritech investments in industry-leading companies include 2Wire, Acclarent, BigFix, Broadsoft, Cornerstone OnDemand, Danger, Facebook, Fortinet, Greenplum, Netezza, NetSuite, PopCap, Presidio, Riverbed, Salesforce.com, Sourcefire, SpringSource, Tele-Atlas, and Zipcar.