18 February 2009

PENTECH LOOKS TOWARDS SILICON VALLEY

Web pioneer John Giannandrea joins Pentech Ventures Advisory Group

Pentech Ventures LLP, the UK's leading venture capital investor in software companies, today announces that John Giannandrea is joining its Advisory Group.

John Giannandrea is a native of Scotland and a graduate of Strathclyde University, but has been living and working in Silicon Valley since the early 1990s. He has been active in executive and non-executive roles in technology companies, working in enterprise applications, telecoms software, and internet and Web 2.0 applications.

After working for Silicon Graphics and General Magic, John joined Netscape in 1994 and became Chief Technologist of the web browser group. Netscape was the company behind the first browser to gain worldwide name recognition and over 90% market penetration.

In 1999 he co-founded Tellme Networks and became its CTO. He was responsible for the development and operation of the world's largest VoiceXML network, handling over 2 billion voice transactions per year. In 2007 TellMe was acquired by Microsoft Corporation.

Most recently he co-founded Metaweb Technologies. Metaweb's first product is Freebase, an open database of the world's information, built by a global community and free for anyone to query, contribute to, and build applications on. John is Metaweb's CTO.

Commenting on his appointment to the Pentech Advisory Board, John Giannandrea said: "Entrepreneurial success is about individuals starting small companies with big ideas and following through on their ambition. I have been lucky enough to have been involved in a number of successful startups, and I believe my experiences can be of use to startups in the UK as well as technology companies looking to expand into US markets."

Founding partner Eddie Anderson comments: "Pentech's Advisory Group plays an active role in Pentech's activities. The members of the Advisory Group all have experience of starting and growing successful technology companies and assist our companies with practical advice, customer introductions, assistance with product marketing, and all other issues facing young and growing companies. John has years of experience as founder and CTO in technology companies in the internet, telecoms and Web 2.0 arena. His knowledge of these areas is unsurpassed and our companies have already started to benefit from his presence."