James Joaquin Joins Bridgescale as Venture Partner

James Joaquin Joins Bridgescale as Venture Partner

Ofoto CEO Strengthens Investment Team at New $160 Million Expansion Venture Fund

MENLO PARK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Bridgescale, a new venture capital firm focused on expansion stage technology investments, announced today the addition of James Joaquin, former CEO of Ofoto, as Venture Partner. He brings two decades of entrepreneurial and operational expertise spanning early-stage to Fortune 500 companies.

With the addition of Joaquin to the Bridgescale investment team, the firm offers the company-building expertise typical of early-stage venture capital with an expansion stage focus. This combination of operational, venture capital, and public-market expertise provides unique and high-value support for young growth companies.

Under Joaquin’s leadership, Ofoto revolutionized how consumers share and print digital photography. During his tenure as CEO, Ofoto became the world’s most popular photo sharing and printing service, and scaled to in excess of 20 million members and more than 1 billion images stored.

“We’re excited to strengthen our team with a proven CEO and entrepreneur who has had enormous success building and scaling technology companies,” said Robert Chaplinsky, General Partner, Bridgescale. “James will provide enormous value to our portfolio companies and make us even better investors.”

“For the last 20 years, James has been plugged into some of the most innovative Silicon Valley companies,” said Matthew Cowan, General Partner, Bridgescale. “His esteemed relationships with entrepreneurs, VCs, and angel investors provide enormous differentiation for our firm.”

“I have a passion for creating new businesses that build insanely great products and services,” said Joaquin. “At Bridgescale, I’ve found a seasoned team that shares this passion. Together we’ve got the right stuff to help entrepreneurs build and scale winning companies.”

About James Joaquin

James Joaquin is a seasoned entrepreneur with 20 years of experience building and growing consumer technology companies. As a Macintosh programmer in the 1980’s, James co-founded Clearview Software, while still a computer science student at Brown University. The applications company was acquired by Apple’s Claris division and he later spent six years with Apple in engineering, product marketing, and business development management roles. He co-founded and headed business development for When.com, an Internet calendar and events service that was acquired by America Online (NYSE:TWX). Joaquin was President and CEO of Ofoto, the leading online photo sharing and printing service. He led the Ofoto team from the company’s early beginnings through the successful sale to the Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:EK). He then ran Ofoto as a wholly owned subsidiary of Kodak, expanding the service beyond the United States into Europe, China, and Japan. Most recently he served as President and CEO of Xoom Corporation, a global money transfer service providing consumers an easy and convenient way to transfer money across countries and currencies.

He is an advisor to numerous Silicon Valley technology startups and serves as a Director for Ritz Interactive, a network of top e-commerce sites including RitzCamera.com.

About Bridgescale

Bridgescale is a new venture capital firm focused on expansion venture investments in technology companies. Bridgescale’s capital is sourced from some of the most respected institutional investors who have a long-term commitment to venture capital. Since its inception in 2006, Bridgescale has invested in four companies including Cortina Systems, a leading communications semiconductor company focused on the carrier infrastructure market; Digital Chocolate, a developer of games and applications for mobile phones; and Proofpoint, the leading provider of enterprise-class messaging security solutions.

The Bridgescale team has more than 70 combined years of operational, venture capital, and investment banking experience including broad transaction expertise spanning early-stage to public-market transactions.

Collectively, the team members have invested in more than 40 companies that were either sold or went public including Atheros, CNET, FormFactor, GeoCities, ONI Systems, Pivotal Technologies, Quantum Effects Design, SupportSoft, and Sycamore. In addition, they have advised on more than 35 M&A and financing transactions representing in excess of $25 billion in transaction value. For more information, please visit Bridgescale’s Web site at www.bridgescale.com.
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