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Wellington Partners hires LinkedIn co-founder Eric Ly as venture partner Wellington Partners hires LinkedIn co-founder Eric Ly as venture partner

04 Jul 2008. Source: AltAssets.
European venture capital firm Wellington Partners has hired LinkedIn co-founder Eric Ly as a venture partner. Ly will work with Wellington portfolio companies, principally in the field of internet services, focusing on social networking and social media applications, product development, technology scalability and viral marketing strategies. He will also be involved in business development and deal origination.

Ly was the founding CTO of business networking site LinkedIn. He is currently the CEO of online scheduling application company Presdo, which he founded.

Wellington general partner Eric Archambeau said, 'We are delighted that Eric will support Wellington Partners. He will be an invaluable source of knowledge and exceptionally gifted door-opener for our entrepreneurs. Our portfolio companies will profit tremendously from his network and experience.'

Ly added, 'Being a venture partner allows me to leverage my entrepreneurial experience and Silicon Valley network to help European entrepreneurs build world-class businesses.'

Ly will join the nine other Wellington technology venture partners, including Seesmic CEO Loïc Le Meur and former Fireclick CEO Ram Sranivasan.

Wellington has €800m under management and offices in London, Munich and Zurich. The firm has a focus on the areas of IT, media convergence, cleantech and life science.

Earlier this month Wellington invested €11m in German online gaming site GameDuell.

Wellington's investments have included now publicly traded Actelion, SAF and XING, privately held companies Alando (acquired by eBay) and ImmobilienScout24 (acquired by Deutsche Telekom) and current portfolio companies Adconion, Astaro, Proximic, Seesmic and Truphone.

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