The Outlook Ventures team has earned a reputation in the software industry for providing exceptional support to entrepreneurs. Of course, we provide capital and fill board roles, but we also actively assist day-to-day in enhancing business strategies, expanding strong management teams and providing introductions to key customers, strategic partners and subsequent funding sources.

The Outlook Venture team has worked closely with over 100 early-stage companies and includes a functional breadth unique among venture capital firms. Having played leadership roles in the founding of successful ventures such as Yahoo!, Onsale (now Amazon), Scopus (now Siebel) and Net Channel (now AOL TV) and held executive positions at major corporations such as IBM, AT&T, Apple Computer, Viacom, and SBC/Pacific Bell, the team brings exceptionally strong strategic and operational capabilities to its portfolio.

Randy Haykin Managing Director

Randy Haykin is a well-known angel and venture investor residing in the Silicon Valley. He has been a Managing Director at Outlook for the past ten years, after co-founding the firm in 1996. He led the firm's early involvement at Overture, and has represented Outlook on the Boards of Digital Chocolate, Reply.com, Reconnex, Loyalty Lab, Bridgestream (acquired by Oracle), NetBrowser Communications, nSite Software, Impulse Network (acquired by Inktomi " N: IKTM), eTeamz (merged with Active Networks), Voquette (merged with Semagix), Qbiquity (acquired by Collabrys) and, Logilent (merged with Toolwire, Inc).

Prior to Outlook, Haykin held various senior sales and marketing positions in the high technology arena over the past 19 years with high-profile companies such as Yahoo!, Viacom, Paramount, BBN, IBM, and Apple Computer.

Haykin served as the founding Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Yahoo!, where he was responsible for building the company's marketing team, establishing agency relationships and generating initial business model and advertising sales for Yahoo. Haykin served as interim VP Marketing at NetChannel, which was successfully acquired by America Online in 1998. He has also served as part of the core team that launched America Online's Greenhouse, a successful venture incubator.

In his five years at Apple Computer, Haykin was responsible for creating and launching the Apple Multimedia Program for developers as well as a line of retail multimedia and CD-ROM products. He was also responsible for the division's strategic relations, including the creation of the "New Media Center" program for higher education, with ten other manufacturers and publishers. As the Director of Operations and Business Development at Viacom/Paramount's West Coast operations (the "Media Kitchen"), Haykin was in charge of online services and interactive team-building, corporate strategy and marketing.

Haykin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Organizational Studies from Brown University, magna cum laude, and an MBA from Harvard's Graduate School of Business. He is the author of "Demystifying Multimedia" (Random House, 1993). Randy enjoys "soccer-parenting", playing the guitar and family outings with his wife, Patty and three daughters, Elise, Julianna and Kayla. He is on the Governing Board of Opportunity International, a non-profit that provides micro-loans for 3rd World countries and the Board of the American Cancer Society.

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Carl Nichols Managing Director

Carl Nichols co-founded Outlook in 1996 and has more than 20 years of experience in the software, computer, telecommunications and consumer products industries. Nichols has held senior executive positions in the strategic planning, business development, operations management, market development and finance departments of several major companies.

Prior to Outlook, Nichols headed strategic and financial planning at SBC/Pacific Bell, an $8 billion telecommunications and Internet service provider, where he was responsible for identifying new growth opportunities and business lines, developing strategic partnerships and optimizing the company's investments. Before joining SBC/Pacific Bell, Nichols was Vice President of Strategic Business Management at Scrivner, Inc., a $6 billion packaged goods distributor. He led the company's business development efforts, including market expansions, new concept developments, domestic and international alliances and operating improvements.

Prior to Scrivner, Nichols spent six years as a management consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, where he provided marketing, technology and operating guidance for his Fortune 500 clients, which included computer manufacturers, broadband service providers, retailers and financial institutions. Prior to Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Nichols served at AT&T's Information Systems International business where he developed marketing plans for the company's entry into Europe and led systems development at Spectrum Development.

Nichols has represented Outlook on the Board of portfolio companies such as ClairMail, Lasso Logic (acquired by SonicWALL N: SNWL), Epicentric (acquired by Vignette N:VIGN), MarketHome (acquired by ClickAction N: CLAC), Arthas (acquired by Yahoo N: YHOO), Toolwire, Vantos and Kinecta (acquired by Stellent N: STEL).

Nichols received a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science magna cum laude from Brown University and an MBA from Harvard's Graduate School of Business. He enjoys skiing, scuba diving and sailing.

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Cindy Padnos Director

After joining Outlook Ventures as a venture partner in mid 2004, Cindy became a full investing Director in early 2005. Her experience and focus encompasses Internet/Web 2.0, technology-enabled services, mobile and software sectors where she previously held progressively responsible positions leading up to several CEO roles. As an entrepreneur, Cindy raised more than $50M in venture funding and delivered several positive outcomes. She currently represents Outlook on the board of Xactly Corporation.

Prior to joining Outlook, Cindy was a venture consultant working with top-tier venture capital firms. Her work ranged from interim CEO assignments, to new investment due diligence - all within the software, internet services and communications sectors. Projects were completed jointly with firms such as BA Venture Partners, 3i, InterWest Ventures, Apex, Bay Partners, Benchmark, MDV, El Dorado, TPG Ventures and USVP with successful transitions managed in portfolio companies such as PlaceWare, Moonlight Systems and Nextance.

Before entering the venture community Cindy gained almost 20 years of experience in a variety of entrepreneurial operations and management consulting roles, including as the founder and CEO of Vivant Corporation, an on-demand application software company where she facilitated the sale to a publicly traded company. Prior to founding Vivant, Cindy was president and CEO of Acumen, a privately held performance management software company. At Acumen she orchestrated a financial turn-around and managed the creation of a new line of Internet-based applications that were successfully delivered to tens of thousands of users in Fortune 500 organizations before a successful M&A transaction.

Previously, Cindy held sales and marketing management positions in several technology companies including vice president of marketing at Scopus Technology (an early CRM company later acquired by Siebel) where she positioned the Company for IPO, director of marketing for IDE, a software (CASE) tools vendor, and at Ingres, a leading relational database provider, and sales management positions at AT&T LongLines and AT&T Information Systems where she was selected as a member of their divestiture planning committee and management development program. Ms. Padnos also worked extensively with both large and small technology companies during her tenure as a management consultant with Arthur D. Little and Booz Allen & Hamilton.

Cindy earned her BA, magna cum laude, at the University of Michigan and received her MBA/MSIA with honors from Carnegie-Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. She serves on the board of directors of LPI&M and is a member of the Board of Advisors for Carnegie-Mellon's Tepper School of Business. She is also currently an advisory board member for the Women's Technology Cluster. Cindy has been an active board advisor with early stage companies such as Encover; Digital Fuel and The People Business Network.

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Margot Giusti Finance/Administration

Margot Giusti is a Chief Financial Officer with over 25 years financial management experience, primarily in the investment management industry. She is a CPA and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of San Francisco. She currently serves as Controller/Chief Financial Officer for venture capital firms with over $500 million in capital and has been active in the venture capital industry for the past six years.

Prior to working in the venture capital industry, Giusti spent 17 years serving in various positions ranging from Controller to Executive Vice President/Chief Financial Officer for Metric Realty and its predecessor, Fox & Carskadon Financial Corporation, leading national real estate investment companies. Prior to that Giusti spent five years on the audit staff of Deloitte, Haskins and Sells.

Giusti is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the California Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Peninsula VCBC ("Venture Capital Bean Counters") Organization.

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Limited Partners
Outlook Ventures investors include leading Institutions from the U.S., Europe, and Asia. In addition, strategically-chosen individual investors include CEOs, founders, technology executives, and venture capitalists.

For more information about Outlook Ventures: info@outlookventures.com.