Welcoming Matt Murphy to the Menlo Team!
It gives us great pleasure today to announce Matt Murphy as Menlo’s newest Managing Director. With all change comes the necessity to evolve and renew; we certainly live and breathe this every day in generating new investment theses, but it can be surprisingly hard for professional partnerships themselves. I am proud of how Menlo has embraced the shifts in the venture industry, from focusing more effort on consumer technology, to developing our seed vehicle, the Menlo Talent Fund, and most importantly, transitioning leadership of the firm to a group of partners that can lay the foundation for the next 40 years of success. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding: our previous fund, MV11, is one of the top performing 2011 venture funds, but it only matters if the groundwork is laid for continued success.
Matt comes to us with a long established track record at Kleiner Perkins, having started the KP iFund in collaboration with Apple as well as acting as a board observer at Google. With investments and board seats in leading companies like AutoNavi (NASDAQ: AMAP), Aerohive Networks (NASDAQ: HIVE), Drawbridge, Simplivity, AppDynamics, and Shazam, Matt is the perfect fit to expand our partnership in core areas of investment such as mobile apps and data center infrastructure.
On a personal note, I have known Matt and his family since he and I were in business school at Stanford, and we have served on both corporate and non-profit boards together. Matt is a skillful, insightful board member; exactly what people mean when they say “value-added.” But he is also a great human being, with the highest degree of integrity and empathy. After all the changes we have made at Menlo, one thing hasn’t changed—our culture. It’s something we call “Venture Right.” Part of it is about being a great investment partner—working as hard as our entrepreneurs to try and make every portfolio company a success. But it is equally about how we treat our founders, co-investors, and each other: with transparency, dignity and respect. The core values with which DuBose Montgomery founded this firm won’t ever change, and Matt is the perfect embodiment of those ideals. I’m excited about building the next generation of Menlo with Matt, Pravin, Shawn, Venky and the rest of our incredible team!