Leader Ventures, a private investment firm offering blended debt and equity financing, announced today that Renee Baker has joined Leader as a Managing Director.

Most recently, Renee Baker held the position of Managing Director at TriplePoint Capital, a private venture finance company, where she oversaw investments in the Early Stage Group. Earlier in her career, Renee was a Managing Director and Co-Founder at Dominion Capital Management, a venture leasing firm focused on lending to early stage venture capital-backed companies in the technology, life science and communication industries.

"Renee brings a wealth of venture lending experience to Leader and we are excited to have her join us," said Patrick Gordan, Founder and Managing Director at Leader Ventures. "Her operations background and business sense will be invaluable to the Leader team," Gordan added.

Renee began her venture lending career at Dominion Ventures, one of the pioneers in creating the venture leasing and lending industry in the United States. Prior to Dominion Ventures, Renee was a Principal at Nippon Enterprise Development Corp. (NED), a Tokyo based venture capital firm where she directed equity investments in the U.S. and monitored the firm's limited partnerships in U.S. venture funds.

Renee has successfully originated, structured and negotiated transactions including equity and debt financing for Tularik (acquired by Amgen), Hotmail (acquired by Microsoft), Onvia (ONVI), Loudeye (LOUD), Quality Care Solutions, Inc. (acquired by TriZetto) and others.

About Leader Ventures:

Leader Ventures is a private investment firm providing blended debt and equity financing to a diversified portfolio of early and late stage, private companies. With offices in San Francisco and Menlo Park, the firm invests primarily in the U.S. and employs a variety of loan plus equity structures to invest in companies at different developmental stages, across diverse industry segments. Investments by Leader and previous investments by Leader principals, include: Google (GOOG), Calista Technologies (acquired by Microsoft), Enpocket (acquired by Nokia), Homestead Technologies (acquired by Intuit) and SideStep (acquired by Kayak.com). For more information, please visit http://www.leaderventures.com/.