CMEA Ventures Promotes James Kim to Senior Partner.

Energy Financing Expert Helps Firm Grow Energy & Materials Practice

SAN FRANCISCO -- CMEA Ventures today announced it has promoted James Kim to Senior Partner in its preeminent Energy & Materials practice. Kim, 30, joined CMEA in 2007 and has led investments in several transformative energy companies, including A123 Systems, a provider of novel, high-power lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicle and consumer product applications.

"Jim Kim is a very experienced venture investor in the Energy & Materials field and has brought us an exciting new perspective," said Tom Baruch, founder and managing director of CMEA. "Our Energy & Materials team has more direct experience in this field and our team has broader interdisciplinary knowledge than any other venture firm, based on our history going back to our first VC fund in 1989. We believe that the market has never been more primed than it is today for investment in this critical growth sector."

Kim joined CMEA from GE Commercial Finance where he led technology venture investments in the cleantech and advanced materials sectors. Kim was instrumental in founding the Energy Technology Ventures group at GE Energy Financial Services, where he also worked on domestic and foreign renewable energy structured finance opportunities. He has previously served as an analyst with GCI Partners, an early stage IT venture capital consulting firm.

Kim holds BS degrees in Computer Science & Electrical Engineering and Political Science from MIT, as well as a Masters in Quantitative Methods and an MBA from Columbia University. He continues to work as a research assistant on projects with Columbia University's Earth Institute.

CMEA's Energy & Materials team includes Tom Baruch, Maurice Gunderson, Senior Partner, Michael Melnick, PhD, Principal, and Venture Partners David Tuckerman, PhD and Bruce Pasternack. Since its inception as a dedicated practice area, CMEA's strategic focus on energy and materials has led to ten investments: publicly disclosed companies that include cNano, Codexis, Intermolecular and Superprotonic, and other stealth companies that include advanced low-cost photovoltaics, modular nuclear power, and a specialty hydrogen storage company. Moving ahead, the firm sees the greatest opportunities to be in transportation fuels, premium power, alternative generation, energy-efficient products, and energy intelligence.

About CMEA Ventures

CMEA Ventures (www.cmeaventures.com) is a venture capital firm focused on energy & materials, high technology, and life sciences investments. CMEA believes that the most successful venture backed companies are science focused, with experienced teams intent on winning. As a result, CMEA's portfolio companies typically have cutting edge, highly differentiated, and often multidisciplinary technology at their core, with founding teams of the highest caliber.

CMEA invests in both early and late stage ventures, and has a strong network of corporate, investment, and entrepreneurial relationships that it leverages on behalf of its portfolio companies. The firm currently manages six funds representing investments in excess of $1 billion. CMEA has been an early stage investor in many successful companies, including Arcadia Biosciences (MGRM), Bayhill Therapeutics, Codexis, Entropic (ENTR), Flextronics (FLEX), Ilypsa (sold to Amgen), LiveOps, MailExpress, Silicon Spice (BRCM), Superprotonic, Symyx (SMMX), Syrrx (purchased by Takeda), and Xenoport (XNPT).

CMEA Ventures was founded in 1989 and maintains offices in San Francisco and Menlo Park. CMEA's partners and associates have extensive science, engineering, and operational backgrounds that particularly suit CMEA's focus on technology and teams - an effective differentiator for entrepreneurs and venture investment partners who dare to change the world, one great company at a time.

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