Canaan Partners, a global venture capital firm specializing in early-stage technology and life sciences companies, today announced the appointment of Harish Gandhi as Executive Director with the firm.

In his new role at Canaan Partners, Harish will work to strengthen and expand Canaan’s investments in the technology space and work hand-in-hand with the country’s top entrepreneurs to build tomorrow’s leading international companies.

Harish takes on the role of Executive Director with Canaan Partners with extensive operational experience and skills in helping companies grow in the field of telecommunications in both India and USA. He has spent twelve years in USA in various engineering, product marketing and business development roles.

“With an established track record, Canaan Partners is well positioned to identify and fund India's next wave of successful entrepreneurs. I look forward to joining the Canaan team and working with the entrepreneurial community towards tapping the immense potential that the Indian technology and telecom sectors have to offer," said Harish Gandhi.

Speaking on the appointment, Alok Mittal, Managing Director with Canaan Partners said, “We are glad to have Harish on board with our team here in India. Harish brings a wealth of experience in the domain of telecom while having worked in both the USA and India. His unique experience will help us build an even stronger investment portfolio in the region
as we continue to attract and invest in entrepreneurs in the telecom segment.”

Prior to joining Canaan Partners, Harish headed the Value Added Services (VAS) Business and the New Product Development team at Bharti Airtel – India’s largest mobile operator. In his product development role, Harish was responsible for working with a number of VAS product, service and content companies as well as system integrators to bring several new
products to the market for Bharti Airtel. Harish has also worked in the capacity of Vice President Business Strategy and Planning at Bharti Airtel where he was responsible for leading the 3G effort at Airtel.

Harish has also served as Director Marketing and Technology at Nokia and as Director Business Development for Dilithium Networks (a telecom start-up) in his earlier assignments.

Harish is a B. Tech graduate from IIT Bombay. He also holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Maryland, and is an MBA from the Wharton Business School.

About Canaan Partners

Canaan Partners invests in visionary entrepreneurs and provides them the networks, insights and operational guidance required to build high-performance technology and healthcare companies. For 20 years, they have taken an active and committed role in the companies in which they invest, and have completed more than 67 mergers and acquisitions and 51
IPOs. With $2.3 billion under management and a worldwide footprint, the firm's technology team is committed to catalyzing the growth of innovative companies in the digital media, communications & mobility, enterprise and clean tech industries. Among its successes are DoubleClick, the leading online advertising solution, Match.com, the most popular online dating site in the world, and Acme Packet, one of
the top ten performing IPOs of 2006. Other Canaan technology investments include SuccessFactors, The Active Network, Blurb, Dexterra, GroundWorks and ID Analytics. Canaan has offices in California, Connecticut, India and Israel.

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