Foundation Capital today announced that former Twitter product manager Anamitra Banerji has been named a partner at the firm. Banerji spent the past year as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at Foundation Capital, where he served as a consultant in the investment process. He also helped launch Widescope, an early-stage research project at Stanford focused on crowd-sourcing federal and state budget deficit reduction.

Anamitra Banerji (Photo: Business Wire)

In his new role, Banerji will focus on identifying and investing in promising startups in the communications, commerce, mobile and marketing technology sectors. As an EIR, he worked closely with other entrepreneurs innovating in these areas, and will apply these learnings to future investments.

“Anamitra brings a unique mix of product management, engineering and monetization experience to the Foundation Capital partnership that allows him to truly speak an entrepreneur’s language,” said Ashu Garg, general partner at Foundation Capital. “We are thrilled to have him on the team.”

Prior to joining Foundation, Banerji co-founded an online health company in India and served in roles at Twitter and Overture (both before and after its Yahoo! acquisition). He joined Twitter in March 2009 as its 30th employee and first product manager. While there, he built out Twitter’s advertising team, incubating from scratch all three products – promoted tweets, promoted trends and promoted accounts – and led the team in getting those products up and running.

“As a firm of ex-entrepreneurs, Foundation Capital has a strong dedication to hands-on support of its portfolio companies,” said Banerji. “As a product person and entrepreneur myself, I look forward to playing an instrumental role in ensuring our portfolio companies achieve success.”

About Foundation Capital

At Foundation Capital, we're dedicated to the proposition that one entrepreneur's idea, with the right support, can become a business that changes the world. We helped Atheros create the mobile Internet, EnerNOC invent the energy demand response market, and Netflix revolutionize media distribution and consumption, among many others. We're currently invested in more than 80 high-growth ventures in the areas of consumer, information technology, software, semiconductors, and clean technology. Recent public offerings of companies we helped found or grow include Reponsys, Financial Engines and Envestnet. For more information, please visit www.foundationcapital.com.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20130204005317/en/