Stanford, UC Berkeley and LBNL Scientists Thomas Jaramillo, Ali Javey, Nick Melosh, Delia Milliron Named 2010 MDV Innovators Award Winners

Pioneering Scientists Secure Funding to Pilot High-Impact Research Projects

Menlo Park, CA -- December 16, 2009 -- MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm investing in pioneering science and innovation, today announced that Stanford Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Nick Melosh and Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Thomas Jaramillo along with Ali Javey, UC Berkeley Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) scientist, and Delia Milliron, Inorganic Facility Director of the Molecular Foundry at LBNL are recipients of the 2010 MDV Innovators Award.

Created in 2008, the MDV Innovator’s Award recognizes early-career faculty scientists for their ground-breaking research, and provides $50,000 in unrestricted funding to each recipient for a one-year pilot project to explore a promising research direction that might not readily receive other funding because of its high-risk, early approach.

At Stanford, Melosh will investigate a novel approach to solar energy capture while Jaramillo will design improved electrocatalysts. At UC Berkeley, Javey will pursue low-cost manufacturing of novel nanopillar photovoltaics while Milliron will develop new nanocrystal-enabled dynamic window technology.

“MDV has worked with scientists and entrepreneurs to catalyze ideas and technologies for more than 25 years,” said MDV General Partner Erik Straser. “We are passionate about fostering university innovation because we’ve seen time and again how university research creates the core technologies essential to new industries and markets.”

Previous MDV Innovators include UC Berkeley and LBNL faculty Jan Liphardt and Rachel Segalman, as well as Associate Professor Mike McGehee and Assistant Professor Yi Cui, both of Stanford Materials Science and Engineering. Combined, these faculty have raised over $50 million in follow-on research funding since receiving the MDV Innovators Award in 2008.

2008 MDV Innovators Awardee McGehee explained, “It helps to have unrestricted funding like the MDV Innovators Award to start new projects and get the preliminary results that will enable funding from more conventional sources.”

UC Berkeley and Stanford faculty were nominated for the 2010 MDV Innovators Award by UC Berkeley Professors Paul Wright, Director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, and Berkeley and LBNL’s Paul Alivisatos, Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and Larry and Diane Bock Professor of Nanotechnology, and Jay Keasling, Director of the Joint BioEnergy Institute; along with Stanford Professors Sally Benson, Director of the Global Climate and Energy Project, and Jeff Koseff, Perry L. McCarty Director of the Woods Institute..

About MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures
MDV is a leading venture capital firm investing in people and technologies that redefine markets. The firm funds and mentors entrepreneurs, scientists and young companies involved in redefining business, technology and medicine. MDV invests around three major themes: Personalizing Medicine; Powering the Planet; and Driving the Digital World. The firm partners with entrepreneurs seeking an investor who will help guide and grow successful companies. Category-leading companies funded by MDV include: Adamas; Agile (ORCL); AudienceScience; CardioDx; Corventis; FormFactor; Genomatica; IronKey; Nanosolar; ONI Systems (CIEN); Pacific Biosciences; Panasas; ParAllele (AFFX); Proofpoint; RainDance Technologies; Sabrix; Tethys Bioscience; Visible Measures; and ZeaChem. MDV has $2 billion dollars under management. For more information visit: www.mdv.com.

About UC Berkeley
The University of California was chartered in 1868 and its flagship campus — envisioned as a "City of Learning" — was established at Berkeley, on San Francisco Bay. Today the world's premier public university and a wellspring of innovation, UC Berkeley occupies a 1,232 acre campus with a sylvan 178-acre central core. From this home its academic community makes key contributions to the economic and social well-being of the Bay Area, California, and the nation.

About Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. The Lab conducts unclassified scientific research across a broad range of scientific disciplines for DOE’s Office of Science and is managed by the University of California. Berkeley Lab employs approximately 4,000 scientists, engineers, support staff and students. Its budget for 2008 was approximately $600 million. Technologies developed at Berkeley Labs, such as lighting, windows and other energy-efficient technologies have generated billions of dollars in revenues, and thousands of jobs.

About Stanford
Located between San Francisco and San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford University is recognized as one of the world's leading research and teaching institutions. For more information visit: www.stanford.edu