Carbon on the move with additional $10M funding

Matrix leads second round, former ViewLogic CEO joins board

WALTHAM, MA, January 13, 2004, Carbon Design Systems - a fast moving EDA company that reduces the time-to-profit for chip companies by enabling pre-silicon system validation - announced today that in just 90 days, it has raised a $10M series B second round of funding at a significantly higher valuation. Carbon further announced that 20 year EDA veteran and former Viewlogic, Innoveda, and Silerity CEO, Will Herman, will immediately join Carbon's board of directors, along with Edgar Masri of Matrix Partners.

Participating venture capital firms included Matrix Partners and existing series A investors Commonwealth Capital and Flagship Ventures. This round of investment brings Carbon's total financing to $15 million with the series A close in April 2002.

"Carbon will use this cash infusion to build out its sales and support structure on a worldwide basis and develop its next generation of products," said Steve Butler, president and CEO of Carbon. "We are pleased that Will Herman and Edgar Masri are joining a seasoned Board that includes Allan Wallack, former CEO of Spring Tide Networks and Chrysalis Symbolic Design."

"I'm excited to be working with Carbon and see the parallel to an early Viewlogic breaking new ground," said Will Herman, Carbon Board member. "Their innovations will put EDA vendors on notice that there is a new player in town."

"We invest in companies that have global impact potential and are positioned to be prime movers in their space. Carbon is the first EDA vendor to recognize that software validation is just as important as hardware verification to achieve first-turn chip success," said Edgar Masri, a partner at Matrix Partners. "By enabling validation to be done prior to chip fabrication, Carbon reduces the time-to-profit equation for an entire industry."

"Carbon has an opportunity to expand the reach of the traditional EDA tools market by delivering a deployable software-only solution for ASIC and SoC validation," stated Steve Ricci, managing director and vice chairman of Flagship Ventures. "The validation market has been held back by the need for functional silicon before validation can begin in earnest."

"We supported Carbon early in its maturation cycle and continue to help them fuel their expansion. We could see they were solving a big problem with enormous upside for the first to establish its brand," noted Stephen McCormack, cofounder of Commonwealth Capital. "With the successful introduction of Carbon's first products at the end of last year, it's time to invest in scaling the business."

About Will Herman

Mr. Herman, a consummate software entrepreneur, was most recently the CEO of Innoveda, Inc. (merger of Viewlogic Systems and Summit Design), a supplier of EDA software tools and services. Will cofounded Viewlogic Systems in 1984 and was the company's senior vice president of engineering responsible for R&D, service, and support until departing in 1992. He rejoined the company as COO in April, 1995 and was promoted to president in January 1996. A year later, Herman was appointed CEO of Viewlogic driving revenue to more than $200 million. During his hiatus from Viewlogic, Herman was president of Scopus Technology, Inc., a leader in providing enterprise-wide customer care solutions. After Scopus, Herman was the president and CEO of Silerity, Inc., an innovative synthesis startup.

About Matrix

Since its inception in 1977, Matrix Partners has been dedicated to helping outstanding entrepreneurs build successful companies. Matrix finances companies that develop cornerstone technologies in a broad range of sectors including: software, communications equipment, semiconductors, storage, networking, and wireless. With offices in the nation's foremost technology centers - Boston and Silicon Valley - Matrix has developed a long-standing base of entrepreneurial know-how coupled with a superior network of industry contacts. Their outstanding track record includes investing over $240 million in start-ups and thirty (30) successful initial public offerings for its portfolio companies. Their approach has propelled it to be one of the most successful venture firms in the United States.

About Flagship Ventures

Founded in 1999, Flagship Ventures is an entrepreneurship and venture capital firm comprising a family of funds: OneLiberty Funds, AGTC Funds and NewcoGen Group. Flagship currently invests from $400 million in funds raised in 2000, and manages a total pool of committed capital approaching $600 million. The Flagship Ventures team consists of 31 professionals focused on creating, financing, and building companies in the life science, information technology, and communications sectors. Extending over a period of 20 years, Flagship's entrepreneurship and investment experience comes from founding over 30 successful new ventures while funding and building over 100 more.

About Commonwealth Capital Ventures

Founded in 1995 by a team of experienced venture capital investors, Commonwealth Capital is a leading early-stage venture capital firm focused on opportunities in the communications infrastructure and software and services sectors. With over $350 million of committed capital under management, the firm's partners have invested in more than 130 high-growth companies that are leaders in their industry categories. Commonwealth Capital's offices are located in Wellesley, MA.

About Carbon

Carbon is delivering software products that enable pre-silicon system validation, where thousands of users can simultaneously develop and test software on the 'golden' RTL hardware implementation model. For the first time, critical foundation software - drivers, diagnostics, and firmware - runs at KHz execution speed on the 'golden' model with cycle and register accuracy. This opens the door for system validation and IP deployment to begin much earlier than traditional methods.

Carbon Design Systems, Inc. is privately held and funded by Matrix Partners, Flagship Ventures, and Commonwealth Capital. The corporate headquarters is located at 375 Totten Pond Road, Suite 100/200, Waltham, MA. 02451. Telephone: 781.890.1500, Facsimile: 781.890.1711, Email: info@carbondesignsystems.com, Website: www.carbondesignsystems.com