MENLO PARK, CA, July 19, 2001-  Matrix Partners, one of the nation's leading venture capital firms, announced today that Shirish Sathaye has joined the firm as a general partner. The addition of Sathaye brings the Menlo Park office to four general partners.

     Before Matrix, Sathaye was first the VP of Engineering, and then the Chief Technology Officer at Alteon Websystems, where he led the engineering organization almost from its inception through a highly successful IPO and subsequent acquisition by Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT). He participated in mergers and acquisitions activities at Alteon, and was instrumental in Alteon's acquisition of two companies.

     "Shirish Sathaye has a rare combination of deep technical understanding and sound business judgment along with significant experience from Alteon and FORE Systems where he helped create major market-leading products," said Andrew Verhalen, Matrix general partner.

     Prior to Alteon, Sathaye was product group director at FORE Systems, where he led the development of all of FORE's award-winning ATM switch products. Before FORE, Sathaye spent eight years at Digital Equipment Corporation, where he worked on Internet routing protocols, Ethernet, FDDI, and ATM network technologies.

     Dr. Sathaye holds a Ph.D from Carnegie Mellon University. He has published several papers, and has numerous patents issued on high-speed network design and performance analysis.

About Matrix Partners
     Since its inception in 1977, Matrix Partners has been dedicated to helping outstanding entrepreneurs build industry-leading technology companies. Matrix focuses on companies that develop cornerstone technologies of the information revolution and invests in a broad range of sectors including software, communications equipment, semiconductors, storage, Internet and wireless. With offices in the two major technology centers - Boston and Silicon Valley - Matrix has developed an exceptionally strong network of contacts and a deep reservoir of entrepreneurial know-how.

     Companies that have gone public out of the Matrix portfolio in the last two years and that Matrix played a founding role in include ArrowPoint Communications (acquired by Cisco), Alteon WebSystems (acquired by Nortel), Blue Martini Software (Nasdaq: BLUE), Broadband Access Systems (acquired by ADC Telecommunications), OnDisplay (acquired by Vignette), Phone.com (merged with Software.com to form Openwave, OPWV), SilverStream Software (Nasdaq: SSSW), Sonus Networks (Nasdaq: SONS), Sycamore Networks (Nasdaq: SCMR) and Turnstone Systems (Nasdaq:TSTN).