MENLO PARK, Calif., - 14 July 2015 - Wing Venture Capital, an investment firm dedicated to building the next generation of industry-leading companies in the business-technology arena, has hired Jay Kidd as Partner, Market Acceleration.
In his new role, Kidd will lead Wing’s initiative to help its portfolio companies swiftly identify and achieve product/market fit—a factor that is vital to the success of startups that go on to become hugely valuable, independent companies. He will work closely with Wing’s founding partners, Gaurav Garg and Peter Wagner, who have decades of experience building billion-dollar-plus enterprises in rapidly growing markets.
Kidd has had a distinguished career as a business leader and brings a unique combination of deep technology expertise and go-to-market experience to his role. Prior to joining Wing, he held several executive positions at NetApp, including Chief Technology Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, and at Brocade, where he was Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Product Management. At both firms, Kidd was instrumental in developing and implementing the companies’ product road maps and in assuring product/market fit. He has also held executive and leadership roles at Omneon Video Networks, Multigen, SGI and HP.
“I am delighted to join the Wing team,” said Jay Kidd. “I have always enjoyed talking with customers about the critical challenges they face and how technology can help solve them. The chance to support new ventures in shaping their innovative ideas to better match these challenges is a terrific opportunity.”
“Jay has rare facility with the subtleties of both product and market,” said Peter Wagner. “We knew we would need a person of incredible depth on both sides of this ‘fit’ we are aiming for, and Jay has it like few others.”
“In our experience,“ added Gaurav Garg, “the hardest and most expensive phase of building an early-stage technology company focused on business markets is going from $1 million to $20 million in revenue, or to several hundred customers from the first ten. We are delighted to have Jay join us at Wing to help our companies accelerate this product/market fit cycle.”
About Wing
Wing is a purpose-built venture capital firm founded by two industry veterans with a different perspective on what it takes to create enduring businesses. It commits to its portfolio companies in their early stages and engages for the long term, with a singular focus on the transformation of business technology by the data-mobile-cloud paradigm. The body of work of Wing’s award-winning team spans two decades and dozens of companies, 16 of which have executed successful IPOs and achieved market capitalizations in excess of $1 billion. Recent examples include FireEye, MobileIron, Nimble Storage, Opower and Ruckus Wireless.
Connect with Wing
Blog: https://www.wing.vc/content
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wing-venture-capital
Media Contact
Elizabeth Zaborowska
Bhava Communications for Wing
510-219-8127
