Software Executive Joins Carlyle's European Venture Team

London – Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group today announced the appointment of Gene Greiner, previously the President of Asera Europe, a privately held software company. Also joining Carlyle as a senior associate is Maurice Martin.

Mr. Greiner joins Carlyle's European venture capital fund, Carlyle Europe Venture Partners, as a director. He will use his 16 years of international management experience in the information technology and software industries to focus on investments in companies in the software and services space.

"Gene's strong industry and entrepreneurial background will bring a great deal to our team," says Wolfgang Hanrieder, a managing director of The Carlyle Group. "Since our European venture fund launched in April 2000, we have developed a strong team of sector-focused investment professionals. This strategy means we have the depth of knowledge needed to uncover the most attractive investment opportunities in Europe and support our portfolio companies actively after investment."

As President of Asera Europe, Mr Greiner was instrumental in raising $165m in financing over three rounds and growing Asera from 50 to 350 personnel. Prior to that he was CEO of Chicago Management Consulting, where he developed strategic relationships with major technology and consulting firms such as SAP, EDS, Accenture, Ernst & Young, and HP, and grew the firm at the rate of 50% annually over five years.

Maurice Martin also joins Carlyle as a senior associate focusing on infrastructure software investments. Mr. Martin is an experienced product technologist with 10 years technical and commercial software industry experience. He joins from IONA Technologies, where he was product director for the Orbix E2A Application Server Platform. Previously, Mr. Martin worked for AME as a development manager and before that, with Baydon Technologies as business development manager. Mr. Martin holds a M.Sc. in Computer Science, and a B.A. in Computing Engineering from Trinity College, Dublin.

The new appointments take Carlyle's European venture team to 18 investment professionals, each of whom specialises in the specific areas in which the fund invests: material sciences, enterprise and infrastructure software, communications services, communications technology and online financial services.

These investment professionals represent a variety of cultural, academic and employment backgrounds, which offers an outstanding range of skills and experience with which to analyse opportunities across the fund’s investment sectors in Europe. The team covers a range of nationalities including American, Belgian, British, Dutch, French, German, Irish, Italian, and Spanish.