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***For Immediate Release***
Redpoint Ventures Names David Karnstedt As Executive-In-Residence
MENLO PARK, CA – SEPTEMBER 9, 2008 – Redpoint Ventures today announced that David Karnstedt has joined the firm as an Executive-in-Residence. Karnstedt has spent the last seven years at Yahoo! and was most recently Senior Vice President of U.S. Sales. He will work with Redpoint and its portfolio companies to seize emerging opportunities in the evolving web and advertising markets.
“There are several important disruptions affecting this space including changes in the way the web is being used for marketing by major brands, technology breakthroughs in targeting and measurement, the explosion of social media, and the increasing globalization of the Web,” said Geoff Yang, Redpoint Ventures partner. “Market changes like these nearly always create opportunity. David's experience and successes will make his perspective and guidance valuable to us and our companies.”
Karnstedt has been involved with a number of firsts in the web marketing arena: he was on the executive teams of Alta Vista and Wired Lycos as the first advertising models for the web were being defined and sold; and was a catalyst for developing products and marketing strategies that leveraged the auction-based search environment for many of the world’s leading marketers. As part of the Overture executive team, he helped define and implement search advertising as it exists today; and, most recently at Yahoo!, he helped build and manage the largest part of the sales force responsible for generating over $6 billion in revenues in 2007 and established Yahoo!’s recognized leadership in online advertising through strategic partnerships with key advertisers and ad agencies, search engine marketing companies, and search technology providers.
Karnstedt, 42, also co-founded the first Advertising industry committee focused on the merging importance of search and advertising and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Interactive Advertising Bureau as well as the Ad Council.
Karnstedt will begin with Redpoint in mid-October. He joins fellow Redpoint EIR’s Jim Lanzone and Tom Hale. Lanzone was formerly CEO of Ask.com; Hale was formerly a senior executive with Adobe.
“David has a very strong track record of introducing and scaling online advertising models across both the direct response and branded advertising segments. His knowledge and experience will be invaluable in identifying and capturing the most promising new ideas,” said Chris Moore, Redpoint Ventures partner.
“The industry is rich with exciting new ideas and models for start ups in interactive media and advertising,” said Karnstedt. “Redpoint has a long history and strong practice in these markets. I look forward to working closely with the Redpoint team and portfolio companies to discover and refine disruptive new media and ad models in this emerging market.”
In these markets, Redpoint has invested in many current, growing start ups like Efficient Frontier, Home Away and Gaia Online; recent high profile acquisitions including RightMedia (acquired by Yahoo!), MySpace (acquired by News Corporation), and Danger (acquired by Microsoft); and some of the industry pioneers that helped define the market as it is today including TiVo, NetFlix, AskJeeves, Excite, and others. The firm is also actively investing in the broadband infrastructure; enterprise systems and software; mobile platforms and applications; and energy and the environment sectors.
About Redpoint Ventures
Redpoint Ventures focuses on partnering with and funding innovative companies that have the potential to define, lead, and change industries. Redpoint partners have many decades of experience and success in technology investing; combined with this foundation, the firm is able to leverage a thriving network of entrepreneurs, partners, and industry experts to accelerate building market-leading companies. Redpoint (http://www.redpoint.com) was founded in 1999 by partners from two of the top firms in the venture capital industry and currently has over $2 billion under management. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, CA with offices in Los Angeles and Shanghai, China.