Carmi Departs Kodiak

Ilan Carmi has resigned from the general partnership of Kodiak Venture Partners, after five years with the firm. Both sides describe the departure as amicable, and say that Carmi already is working to fill his portfolio company board seats with remaining Kodiak partners.

“He wants to go off and pursue early stage, tech-oriented deals with a global reach,” says a source with Kodiak. “It’s not too divergent from what we’re already doing, except for the global reach part.”

Kodiak concentrates most of its investment activities on the Eastern seaboard, except for a handful of deals in California and one portfolio company in Texas. Its only international experience involves a few companies that were based in Israel at the time of investment, but which already have moved their headquarters to Massachusetts.

Carmi, a native Israeli, confirms that he wants to do deals outside of Kodiak’s geographic focus, although he said it was premature to comment on specific plans. “It is with mixed feelings that I leave behind a strong portfolio of companies that successfully launched their businesses into the market,” he says.

Among Carmi’s portfolio companies were Application Security Inc., Azimuth Systems Inc., BTI Photonics Inc., CipherOptics Inc., Mempile, Trebia Networks Inc., Tribotek Inc., Egenera Inc. (which is in registration for an IPO) and Tiaris Inc. (acquired by TMT Coaxial Networks). He plans to continue focusing on the information technology, communications and infrastructure equipment spaces.

Prior to joining Kodiak, Carmi worked for Nortel, which had acquired Bay Networks, where he was vice president and general manager for Bay’s routing division. He also spent time with 3Com Corp., Chipcom Corp., Fibronics Ltd. and as a captain in the Israeli Air Force.

Email Daniel.Primack@thomson.com