Flagship Ventures Promotes Samir Kaul to Partner

Business Wire, Nov 8, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Flagship Ventures today announced that Principal Samir Kaul has been promoted to Partner at the firm. In addition to his role at Flagship, Samir has also been the founding-CEO of Codon Devices, a new start-up backed by Flagship Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Alloy Ventures and Vinod Khosla.

At Flagship, Samir focuses on early stage venture creation opportunities in the life science sector. He was involved in co-founding Helicos BioSciences, a leader in single molecule sequencing launched in 2003. He was also a co-founder and startup President of Epitome Biosystems, a protein analysis company, where he remains on the Board. In addition, Samir has played an active role in several other Flagship portfolio companies, including BG Medicine, Genstruct, and Morphotek.

"We are pleased to acknowledge Samir through this promotion for the contributions he has made in helping Flagship to build a strong portfolio of leading life science companies," said Noubar Afeyan, Managing Partner and CEO of Flagship Ventures. "His experience and recent track record bring us further strength in this important, rapidly evolving industry. We look forward to his continued success as part of our team."

Samir joined Flagship Ventures while completing his MBA at Harvard Business School in 2001. Previously, he worked at the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), and led the Arabidopsis thaliana sequencing project, the first plant genome to be completely sequenced. He was also Chairperson of the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative and led the publication of the genome paper that appeared in Nature in 2000. In addition, Samir has been a lead and co-author on papers appearing in Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been keynote speaker at a number of international conferences.

About Flagship Ventures

Flagship Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on creating, financing, and building innovative companies in the Life Science and Technology sectors. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, Flagship Ventures was founded in 1999 and manages $700 million in capital. Prior to its founding, Flagship's principals were involved as founders or investors in over 100 firms including: Adolor, AltaVista, Anesta, Antigenics, Aspect Medical, Astral Point, Celera Genomics, ChemGenics Pharmaceuticals, Color Kinetics, Chantry Networks, Cytyc, DataSage, Exact Sciences, IDEXX, PerSeptive Biosystems, Somatogen, Telecorp PCS and TripAdvisor. For more information, visit www.flagshipventures.com.