Updata Promotes Pair

Updata Partners has promoted Rich Erickson to general partner and Carter Griffin to partner. The moves were made effective with the recent closing of Updata's fourth fund with $223 million in capital commitments. Updata has offices in Reston, Va. And Edison, N.J., and focused on growth-stage technology investments.

PRESS RELEASE 

Updata Partners, a leading, growth stage venture capital firm investing in the information technology industry, announced today the promotions of Rich Erickson to General Partner and Carter Griffin to Partner. These positions were made effective with the closing of the firm's latest fund, Updata Partners IV L.P., of $223 million. As former IT industry entrepreneurs and CEOs, Erickson and Griffin advance Updata's strategy of being an active, value-added investor to the firm's portfolio of rapidly growing, market-leading information technology companies.  

They have both successfully transitioned to the role of value-added investors, facilitating the objectives of our companies and sourcing new investments in rapidly growing, market-leading firms.  

“Rich's experience as a CEO of a publicly-traded company as well as in growing and exiting companies through M&A and Carter's combination of operational, entrepreneurial and financial experience fit exceedingly well with our strategy of providing hands-on assistance to our portfolio companies,” said John Burton, Managing General Partner at Updata Partners. “They have both successfully transitioned to the role of value-added investors, facilitating the objectives of our companies and sourcing new investments in rapidly growing, market-leading firms.”

Erickson is based in Updata's Edison, New Jersey office and sits on the boards of directors of Updata portfolio companies, Acclaris, HotGigs, Interactions and Red Vision. He joined Updata in 2004, bringing more than 20 years of executive experience in the IT industry. As President and CEO of AlphaNet Solutions Inc., Erickson drove the restructuring and sale of the publicly-held IT outsourcing company to CIBER. Prior to this, he led a similar effort at iXL, an Internet application consulting firm, in its public-to-public company merger with Scient. From 1987 until 1997, as one of two principals of Digital Network Associates (DNA), a private network and systems integrator, he guided the growth of the company through its ultimate sale United States Office Products (USOP). Erickson started his career at Excelan, one of the TCP/IP Internet network pioneers. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Villanova University.

Griffin is based in Updata's Reston, Virginia office and sits on the boards of directors of Updata portfolio companies, CMWare, iContact, LogiXML and Nimaya. Griffin joined Updata in December of 2005 as former Chairman and CEO of Brivo Systems, a security software company that was sold to Duchossois Enterprises Group. During his tenure at Brivo, he raised over $30 million in multiple rounds of equity and debt financing from venture capitalists, strategic partners and angel investors. Prior to Brivo Griffin spent four years as a senior vice president at strategic consulting firm Kaiser Associates. Earlier in his career, he worked in London for the Coca-Cola Company and held positions at American Management Systems and Arthur Andersen. Griffin holds an M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

About Updata Partners

Based in Reston, Virginia and Edison, New Jersey, Updata Partners is a leading venture capital firm that invests in growth stage information technology companies with innovative intellectual property enabling market-leading products and services. Led by an investment team averaging more than 20 years of operational and private equity experience in the technology industry, we seek investments where the combination of our financial backing and operating expertise will accelerate growth. With close to $500 million under management, the firm also selectively provides recapitalization and management buyout financing. For more information, visit www.updatapartners.com.