Mark Ashida

Well, here’s one job you can score if your venture capital firm starts to wind down: Take over the CEO post at one of your portfolio companies.

That’s what is occurring at Symform, the cloud storage and backup startup which just last week scored $3 million in fresh funding. Today, the company is announcing that Mark Ashida, a former partner at OVP Venture Partners, has replaced Matthew Schiltz as CEO.

I’ve dubbed Schiltz a “roving CEO” in the past — in part because he’s taken on the CEO roles of a number of startup companies in the region (Powerit, Docusign, General Software and CourtLink).

In a release, Symform said that the board and executive team agreed to “leadership adjustments to execute on its aggressive 2013 plan and support the company’s long-term vision.”

The appointment of Ashida also comes just three months after OVP, one of the oldest venture firms in the Northwest, made the decision to wind down operations. Ashida worked at OVP for five years, and led investments not only in Symform but also Avenda Systems and Redseal Systems. He’s a former general manager in the Enterprise Networking Group at Microsoft.

“Since becoming a founding investor in Symform, I’ve been bullish on the company’s disruptive storage technology and innovative business model and believe Symform is well-positioned to capitalize on the burgeoning prosumer and small-business markets for cloud storage and backup,” said Ashida in a release. “After participating on the board for four years, I feel even more strongly about Symform and where it is headed over the next few years. Given its success to date, the company is attracting top-tier talent and I’m committed to creating a leadership team that will accelerate our growth as we capitalize on a tremendous market opportunity.”

The company also announced today Omri Gazitt, a 13-year Microsoft veteran, joined as senior vice president of product development. It also recently hired Bob DeSantis as senior vice president of global sales and business development.

Total funding in Symform stands at $20 million, including the recent investment from Second Century Ventures as well as money from existing investors Longworth Venture Partners, OVP Venture Partners and WestRiver Capital. Symform was founded by former Microsoft engineers Praerit Garg and Bassam Tabarra.

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