Mark Hoover joins Woodside Fund as Venture Partner
October 4, 2006

Renowned Strategic Marketing Visionary Joins Silicon Valley Venture Capital Firm

Redwood Shores, CA. - Woodside Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm, today announced that Mark Hoover has joined the Redwood Shores-based firm as venture partner. Prior to joining Woodside Fund, he was the co-founder and president of Acuitive, Inc., a consulting firm that worked intimately with entrepreneurs at many early-stage technology companies to formulate winning product and market strategies. Some of the Acuitive clients that went on to become high profile contributors in the industry include Alteon WebSystems, Brocade, NetScreen, StratumOne, and Maverick Semiconductor. Earlier in his career, Hoover was a senior executive at Synoptics/Bay Networks and also served in engineering and management roles at AT&T Bell Labs and AT&T Computer Systems. Hoover’s relationship with Woodside Fund stretches back almost eight years and emerged from an Acuitive consulting engagement with HotRail, a Woodside Fund portfolio company that he helped position in the networking market prior to its acquisition by Conexant for $400 million. Acuitive will be winding down active operations by the end of 2006 and Hoover will split his time between individual consulting and serving as a venture partner at Woodside Fund. He will join the team of six partners, which include Vincent Occhipinti, Robert Larson, Daniel Ahn, John Occhipinti, Thomas Shields, and Rick Shriner – who each bring unique technology, entrepreneurial, operational, and investment experience to the team.

“Mark not only has a tremendous ability to identify a great business opportunity, but a rare quality of unending patience to help a young company grow. He provides strategy and counsel combined with 25 years of industry experience and helps take a truly great idea from inception and make it a reality,” commented Tom Barsi, CEO of ConSentry Networks, a provider of secure LAN solutions. “Mark was instrumental in helping ConSentry drive our initial product strategy and help position us as a leader in LAN security.”

“I decided to join Woodside Fund as a venture partner because I want to continue working closely with entrepreneurs to create great companies, and Woodside’s approach is very complementary to mine,” said Mark Hoover. “I feel with my experience and the processes we defined at Acuitive, I can offer value to the types of early stage companies that Woodside focuses on. I look forward to continuing to work closely with the Woodside team, who I have come to respect and like over the past eight years.”

“Mark’s depth of experience in all aspects of network infrastructure, his wealth of knowledge in strategic marketing, and his devotion to helping entrepreneurs succeed are perfect complements to the team at Woodside Fund,” said Thomas Shields, managing director at Woodside Fund. “On behalf of the entire team, we are excited to have Mark on board. We are confident that Mark will be a key addition to our team, helping us identify and evaluate the most rewarding investments and adding value to our portfolio companies as they progress through their development and build to successful exits.”

Currently, Hoover is a board member at Covelight Systems, the field-proven leader in online fraud and identity theft solutions. Spencer Snedecor, CEO of Covelight Systems, commented that “Mark has an exceptional ability to identify viable technologies and help build great technology companies. As an active board member, he has consistently provided valuable advice and counsel for Covelight, and on behalf of the entire leadership team, we appreciate his honest, strategic counsel, keen sense of market direction, and his trusting, no-nonsense character.”

About Mark Hoover
Mark Hoover has been involved in product development, business development, and marketing in the networking industry for more than 25 years. He has been involved in the technical and market development of many networking technologies, including 10-BASE-T, routing, FDDI, ATM, Ethernet switching, firewall, Internet traffic management, and edge WAN switching. Mark Hoover is a Venture Partner at Woodside Fund, helping to identify and evaluate investments and adding value to portfolio companies. Prior to Woodside Fund, Mark was President of Acuitive, a strategic marketing firm that worked intimately at an early stage with many technology companies that went on to become important high profile contributors in the networking industry. Before launching Acuitive, Mark was a senior executive at SynOptics/Bay Networks and also worked in engineering, product management, and business development roles at AT&T Bell Laboratories and AT&T Computer Systems. Mark holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his wife and three small children, and recovering from spending time with his children by exercising, following the trials and tribulations of the Philadelphia Phillies, and managing his fantasy baseball team.

About Woodside Fund
Woodside Fund is a leading venture capital firm that excels in developing early-stage technology companies. Founded in 1983, Woodside Fund attributes its long record of success to the high value it places on building productive partnerships with entrepreneurs, other investors and service providers. Typically a lead investor, Woodside Fund invests from $5 million to $10 million in early-stage software, fabless semiconductor and network infrastructure companies located primarily on the West Coast. Woodside Fund has more than $330 million in capital under active management.

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