MENLO PARK, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/05/13 -- Lightspeed Venture Partners, a leading, global venture capital firm with over $2 billion of committed capital, today announced that Tim Danford has joined the firm as a Venture Partner. He will focus on incubating companies in the enterprise technology and mobile sectors from Lightspeed's Menlo Park office where the firm has been supporting IT companies from their earliest stages of development through successful exit for the last decade. Lightspeed's IT portfolio currently includes Aerohive, AppDynamics, DataStax, MapR Technologies, MuleSoft, Nimble Storage, ZScaler and many other industry leaders and disruptors.

"Tim's experience incubating successful companies like MobileIron and Airespace not only expands our footprint in early stage investing but also broadens our capabilities to assist entrepreneurs at the idea stage of their development," said Barry Eggers, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. "His unique approach and experience are a great addition to our team."

Most recently, Tim was a Managing Director at Storm Ventures, where he was involved with developing the business thesis and recruiting the founders of multiple companies including Airespace (acquired by Cisco), AdInfuse (acquired by Velti) and Averail. He also played a key role in MobileIron's development by recruiting the founding CTO from Nortel and collaborating with the company's other founders to start the market-leading company. In addition, he is the co-inventor of the first patent granted to MobileIron with the founding CTO, Suresh Batchu.

Prior to joining Storm Ventures, Tim worked in the Corporate Business Development Group at Cisco where he focused on mergers and acquisitions, strategy and investments in mobility, wireless and VoIP. He also co-founded the group responsible for Cisco's Enterprise VoIP (Voice-over-IP) Business Unit, which resulted in multiple acquisitions and the development of the Cisco AVVID product lines. Tim was awarded the first Technology Pioneer Award by Cisco's CTO for his contributions to the founding VoIP team.

"I've known the Lightspeed team for a number of years and have always been impressed with their track record in the enterprise market and theme-based approach to investing," said Danford. "I am thrilled to join the team to collaborate with entrepreneurs at the very earliest stages of their journey to build market leading companies."

About Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a leading venture capital firm with over $2 billion of committed capital under management and investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, India, Israel and China with Lightspeed China Partners. Over the past two decades, Lightspeed partners have backed more than 200 consumer, enterprise and cleantech companies, many of which have become leaders in their respective markets, including Blue Nile, Brocade, Ciena, DoubleClick, eHealth, Flixster, Fusion-io, Informatica, Kosmix, LivingSocial, Lucky Pai, Nicira, Playdom, Pliant Technology, Provigent, Riverbed Technology, Solazyme, TutorVista, Virsa Systems, Waveset, and XtremIO. http://www.lsvp.com