MENLO PARK, CA — (Marketwired) — 01/21/15 — Dharmesh Thakker, a former Intel Capital managing director who most recently led that firm–s global cloud and big-data practice, is joining Battery Ventures as a general partner. He starts at Battery Feb. 1.
Thakker will work out of the firm–s Menlo Park office and focus on venture investments in areas including cloud infrastructure, big data, security and next-generation enterprise applications. At Intel Capital, Thakker was an early investor in platform companies Mirantis, Enlighted, BlueData and Elastic Box, and a growth-stage investor in MongoDB, Maginatics (acquired by EMC) and DynamicOps (acquired by VMware), among others.* He also supported Intel–s management on the company–s strategic collaboration with Cloudera and assisted in long-range strategic planning for Intel–s $14 billion datacenter group.
“I–m extremely excited to be joining Battery, a firm that I–ve long admired and respected for spotting key technology trends early,” Thakker said. “With its decades of experience, global reach and stage-agnostic investing approach, Battery should provide an excellent platform to capitalize on the massive enterprise-IT opportunity ahead of us right now.”
“Dharmesh is a tenacious and well-respected venture capitalist who always puts entrepreneurs first,” said Roger Lee, a Battery general partner based in Menlo Park. “At Battery, we know he will continue to leverage his operating background and work hard to support world-class portfolio companies, as well as bring them a valuable network of technology-industry relationships he forged at Intel and in other industry roles.”
Thakker first joined Intel Capital in 2011 after working as an enterprise-focused venture capitalist at Advanced Technology Ventures, where he supported investments in Qumu (acquired by Rimage) and Actifio. Prior to that, he spent almost a decade working in the enterprise-software industry in go-to-market and channel-expansion roles. At Keynote Systems, a pioneer in the application-performance management market, he launched several mobile, web and video-management products and helped drive annual SaaS revenue from zero to $20 million.
Thakker was also an early team member at InterNetwork (acquired by FinePoint) and Peakstone (acquired by Entrust), where he managed strategic relationships with cloud-computing pioneer Exodus Communications and industry leaders H-P and IBM. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he received a BS in electrical engineering, Thakker also holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.
“Battery has had a long history of working with enterprise-IT disruptors through many technology cycles, from the pre-Internet days of client/server to the new world of scale-out cloud computing and virtualization,” said Battery General Partner Scott Tobin. “We know Dharmesh has the background and foresight to enhance our investing efforts significantly in today–s enterprise-IT environment.”
Enterprise-IT investments are a significant area of focus at Battery; firm has done 14 such deals in the last two years.
*For a full list of Thakker–s investments, please click .
Battery invests in cutting-edge, category-defining businesses in markets including software and services, Web infrastructure, e-commerce, digital media and industrial technologies. Founded in 1983, the firm backs companies at stages ranging from seed to buyout and invests globally from offices in Boston, Silicon Valley and Israel. Follow the firm on Twitter @BatteryVentures, visit our website at and find a full list of Battery–s portfolio companies .
Rebecca Buckman
Vice President, Communications and Content
Battery Ventures
650-292-2077
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