Enterprise pro Peter Levine, a former manager at Mayfield Fund that was a part of Citrixa4ぎa4г $500 million acquisition of XenSource, is joining the storied venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz to man its coverage of the enterprise sector.
Andreessen-Horowitz is well-established in the enterprise space a4ぎa4揩it has invested in cloud storage provider Box.net and Asana, a collaboration company started by Facebook co-founder Dustin Mokovitz and Justin Rosenstein. But managing a super-fund thata4ぎa4г worth nearly $1 billion can take a lot of work. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz might both be enterprise pros themselves after orchestrating Opswarea4ぎa4г $1.6 billion sale to Hewlett-Packard, but they were short-handed enough to bring Levine on board.
Levine will focus on early-stage and mid-stage companies that are looking for investors in their first and second rounds of funding, he said. To kick that off, hea4ぎa4г invested in Bromium as his debut investment at Andreessen-Horowitz a4ぎa4揩a company that focuses on virtualization and security. Ita4ぎa4г part of Levinea4ぎa4г investing ethos that he brings to the firm: the intersection of enterprise and mobile technology.
a4ぎAI think the big trend this year is the enablement of mobile consumer devices into an enterprise environment,a4ぎ Levine said. a4ぎAHow, when somebody has an iPhone or an android device, how do they securely incorporate that into an enterprise environment.a4ぎ
Ita4ぎa4г a complicated enough trend, too a4ぎa4 most large companies fret about bringing in external devices that might not be secure and are easy to hijack for information. But ita4ぎa4г a trend that is on its way regardless of what larger companies want, he said. Therea4ぎa4г a huge opportunity for companies working on securing that data on Android devices and other mobile devices, which is what he said he wants to focus on specifically.
Levine will operate as a a4ぎAventure partner,a4ぎ a role the firm crafted just for him. It amounts to being a part-time general partner, he said. That means that he will be coordinating investments and also serve on the boards of companies he invests in. But he will also split his time with his current company Citrix, he said.
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Companies: Andreessen Horowitz, citrix, Opsware, xensource
Companies: Andreessen Horowitz, citrix, Opsware, xensource
Matthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francisco, California. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron.
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