SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Madrona Venture Group, an early-stage venture capital firm, announced today that S. “Soma” Somasegar is joining as a Venture Partner. Soma joins Madrona after nearly twenty-seven years at Microsoft Corporation, where he most recently was Corporate Vice President of the Developer Division. Under Soma’s leadership, the Developer Division, which supports over six million .NET developers worldwide, expanded its mission to deliver developer tools and services for mobile development and cloud development across a variety of platforms and programming technologies through the Visual Studio family of products.
As Venture Partner, Soma will help identify new investments and provide strategic and operational advice to Madrona portfolio companies.
“The world of software development has seen radical changes since I started at Microsoft building Windows nearly twenty-seven years ago. Being at the helm of the Developer Division, I had the opportunity to see the incredible shifts brought on by the web, mobile and cloud waves first hand – forces which have enabled startups and enterprises to quickly reach millions of users literally overnight and bring incredible innovation to market,” said Soma. “I’m excited to work with Madrona, which has had such an impact on the greater Seattle technology ecosystem, and their portfolio companies to build companies that will shape the future of our region and the tech industry.”
As Corporate Vice President of the Developer Division, Soma oversaw Microsoft’s developer tools and technologies, including the Visual Studio line of products and services and the .NET Framework. Additionally, he fostered a community of developers through MSDN and other evangelism programs focused on core developers. Soma was also the executive sponsor for global development at Microsoft and oversaw Microsoft’s Global Development Centers in China, India, and Israel.
“Over the last five years we have witnessed a massive shift in how much power developers have over which products and technologies are adopted into enterprise IT. This shift to DevOps and the migration of IT spend from central IT into business groups has now been further accelerated by the move to microservices that make it easier to build, deploy and scale enterprise applications. Together these trends are driving massive change. Soma’s deep understanding of the needs of developers and, more broadly, of enterprise software development and adoption, will be especially relevant to Madrona’s investment strategy and portfolio companies,” said Tim Porter, Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group. “We are excited to have Soma on board to share his extensive management and industry expertise with our entrepreneurs and our team.”
Soma has been an active angel investor both in the region and globally. With investments spanning across both enterprise and consumer segments, Soma has focused on early stage investments across a wide range of technology areas.
Soma holds a master's degree in computer engineering from Louisiana State University and a bachelor's degree in electronics and communication engineering from Guindy Engineering College, Anna University in Chennai, India.
About Madrona Venture Group
Madrona (www.madrona.com) has been investing in early-stage technology companies in the Pacific Northwest since 1995 and has been privileged to play a role in some of the region's most successful technology ventures. The firm invests predominately in seed and Series A rounds across the information technology spectrum including consumer Internet, commercial software and services, digital media and advertising, networking and cloud computing, and mobile. Madrona manages nearly $1.3 billion and was an early investor in companies such as Amazon.com, Apptio, buuteeq, Isilon Systems, and World Wide Packets.