Canaan Partners Closes $450 Million Canaan VII Fund; Brent Ahrens and Maha Ibrahim Appointed General Partners.

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Canaan Partners, an early-stage investor and creator of next-generation companies in technology and life sciences, today announced the closing of Canaan VII. The fund will invest in Internet infrastructure, communications, software and services, medical devices, biological sciences, pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. The closing of Canaan VII brings Canaan Partners capital under management to $2.2 billion.

Canaan also announced today the promotions of two general partners at the firm, Brent Ahrens and Maha Ibrahim. Mr. Ahrens and Ms. Ibrahim will join other general partners in Canaan VII: John Balen, James Furnivall, Deepak Kamra, Gregory Kopkinsky, Seth Rudnick, Guy Russo, and Eric Young.

"We had extremely strong interest in the fund, and we were impressed with our high caliber of investors," said John Balen, general partner at Canaan Partners. "Notably, we were unable to accept all the capital commitments our investors desired. This keen interest reflects our successful investment strategy and our experience as a partnership investing together since 1987," Balen stated.

"Building portfolio companies such as Peninsula Pharmaceuticals, Dexcom and ONI Systems resulted in Canaan's consistent top quartile returns," said Charles Froland, managing director for GM Investment Management Corporation. "Canaan identified a strategic investment formula early on and stuck with it," he added.

About Brent Ahrens

Brent Ahrens focuses on life sciences investments for Canaan, contributing a number of major successes to the firm's total of 92 liquidity events. In April 2005, one of his investments, Dexcom, concluded an initial public offering. (http://www.canaan.com/releases/2005/050414_dexcom.htm) Another of Mr. Ahrens' investments, Peninsula Pharmaceuticals, announced an agreement in April to be acquired by Johnson & Johnson in a cash-for-stock transaction valued at approximately $245 million. (http://www.canaan.com/releases/2005/050418_peninsula.htm) In 2004, another of his investments, Revivant, was sold to Zoll Medical Corporation. (http://www.zoll.com/PressRelease.asp?nPressReleaseID=138)

Currently, Mr. Ahrens is on the board of directors of many private companies including Coapt Systems, CoAxia, Novare Surgical, and Transoma Medical.

Mr. Ahrens' varied and comprehensive technical and clinical experience has enabled him to build portfolio companies' clinical, product development, and FDA approval strategies. Mr. Ahrens joined Canaan in 1999 through the Kauffman Fellows Program. Prior to joining Canaan, he worked for General Surgical Innovations and Ethicon Endo-Surgery (part of Johnson & Johnson) in a variety of sales, marketing, business development, and technical roles.

About Maha Ibrahim

Maha Ibrahim joined Canaan's Menlo Park offices in March 2000, with a focus on infrastructure, software and data-communications investments. Ms. Ibrahim sits on the board of directors at Habeas, Mobilitec, Sensage, and Tacit Networks.

During her tenure as vice president of business development at Qwest and as a management consultant with Boston Consulting Group and Price Waterhouse, Ms. Ibrahim developed and honed business development and sales models that she has successfully introduced to her portfolio companies. In addition, Ms. Ibrahim has also actively identified, recruited, and continually developed world-class management teams for her portfolio companies.

"Both Brent and Maha have demonstrated exceptional abilities to spot promising companies and to build them rapidly and effectively," said Seth Rudnick, general partner at Canaan. "We are extremely fortunate to have them as part of our team."

About Canaan Partners

Canaan Partners is an early-stage investor and creates next-generation companies in Internet infrastructure, communications, software and services, medical devices, biological sciences, pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Founded in 1987, the firm has invested in more than 210 companies, completed 52 mergers and acquisitions, and taken 45 companies public. Canaan was an early investor in Dexcom (DXCM), DoubleClick (DCLK), CommerceOne (CMRC), Copper Mountain Networks (CMTN), Esperion (ESPR), Immunicon (IMMC), International Network Services (INSS), ONI Systems (ONIS), and Peninsula Pharmaceuticals, along with dozens of other market-leading companies. Canaan has offices in Menlo Park, California and Rowayton, Connecticut. For more information visit: www.canaan.com.