The Carlyle Group Further Expands Its US Venture Capital Team Allan Thygesen and Brian Hayhurst Join Carlyle Venture Partners

Washington, DC - The Carlyle Group, a leading global private equity firm, today announced two additions to its US Venture Team. Allan C. Thygesen joins the firm's San Francisco office as Managing Director, and Brian W. Hayhurst joins the Washington, DC office as Principal. Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Thygesen worked for almost five years at Wink Communications, Inc., a leading interactive television company, where he last held the position of Executive Vice President for Sales and Business Development. In that role, he led the company's relationships with major cable and satellite operators, broadcast and cable networks, advertisers and agencies, consumer electronics manufacturers and other partners. At Wink, Mr. Thygesen also served as Interim Chief Financial Officer in preparation for the company's initial public offering in August 1999, and was directly involved in two rounds of private equity financing raising $90 million Before joining Wink, Mr. Thygesen served in a variety of executive, sales, marketing, customer service and finance management roles at Gold Disk, Inc., a venture-backed producer and publisher of personal productivity software; at Media Vision Technologies, Inc., a multimedia hardware manufacturer and publisher of CD-ROM entertainment software; at Pellucid, a venture-backed start-up developing 3D graphics hardware acquired by Media Vision in May of 1993; at Everex Systems, a manufacturer of personal computers and peripheral products; and at Radiometer A/S, a manufacturer of medical measuring equipment. Mr. Thygesen received a M.S. degree in Economics from the University of Copenhagen and a M.B.A. from at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “Allan brings a wealth of operating and industry experience to our team.” said Bob Grady, Managing Director and Global Head of Venture Capital at Carlyle, “and we are very excited to have attracted him to Carlyle. He is an exceptionally smart person.” Brian Hayhurst brings over six years of experience in early stage technology investing to Carlyle Venture Partners and rejoins the firm from Cintra Ventures, where he was a General Partner. From 1996 to 2000, Mr. Hayhurst was a Vice President at Carlyle Venture Partners where he led several investments in the firm's US venture capital fund. He has worked closely with several Carlyle Venture Partners portfolio companies including Cidera, AnyDay (sold to Palm Computing (Nasdaq: PALM)), Narrative Communications (sold to Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM)), Develop Online, Blackboard, Vividon, and Realeum Solutions. Prior to joining Carlyle, he was with the venture capital arm of Morgan Keegan, Inc., where he helped to invest the firm's $30 million venture fund. Previously, Mr. Hayhurst served for nine years in the corporate audit group at Deloitte & Touche. Mr. Hayhurst is an honors graduate of Rhodes College. “Brian Hayhurst has been one of Carlyle Venture Partners most effective investors. We are delighted to have him back,” said Mr. Grady.