Tech Entrepreneur and Investor Anderee Berengian Acquires Majority Stake in Cie Digital Labs

IRVINE, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 16, 2015) - Cie Digital Labs (CDL), a hybrid interactive development firm and technology startup studio, today announced that Anderee Berengian, Managing Partner at RezVen Partners (RVP) and a former executive at Overture (which was acquired by Yahoo!), has acquired a majority stake in the company. Justin Choi, CDL's founder and Nativo's CEO, will retain a significant stake and continue to leverage his product development and entrepreneurial experience to guide the company's product and strategy efforts. This new infusion of capital will be used to accelerate company operations and expand its engineering team. Berengian, who has served as Chairman of the company since March of this year, will expand his role and take the helm as Cie Digital Labs' Chief Executive Officer. He will also continue his role as Managing Partner at RVP.

"In just a couple of quarters, Anderee has helped Cie Digital drive more than 50% revenue growth and more than 25% team growth," said Tyler Tanaka, President at Cie Digital Labs. "His combined experience as a founder, entrepreneur and VC makes him a perfect addition to our leadership team, enabling us to connect our deep bench of Silicon Valley know-how to an expanding portfolio of clients and new venture opportunities."

CDL's Future As a Startup Studio
Cie Digital Labs, which recently moved from Long Beach to Irvine, is an interactive development firm focused on delivering tech innovation to clients in a wide range of industries. CDL acts as an outsourced innovation studio that helps solve business problems with new technology. CDL uncovers new business opportunities that it can capitalize on through joint ventures with partners, spin-outs, and strategic collaborations with existing startups ("spin-ins"). For example, a client engagement can lead to the generation of entirely new digital products, some of which may then become the basis of new companies.

CDL supports a wide range of capabilities: It identifies opportunities from initial ideation, designs the initial product and technology, provides operational resources, and then connects these ventures to qualified entrepreneurs when they are ready to become independent companies. Two of these companies include Cie Games, which sold to Glu Mobile for $100 million last year; and Nativo, which raised $32 million to date in funding and is a leading player in advertising technology.

Serial Entrepreneur, Technologist and Investor Brings Fresh Energy to CDL
Berengian's combined technical expertise and Silicon Valley savvy will help accelerate CDL's growth and evolution as a startup studio. Taking a hands-on approach, Berengian will be responsible for building a world-class engineering team and growing its startup studio's transformational ideas into sustainable, profitable companies.

Berengian is the Founder and Managing Partner of Newport Beach-based RezVen Partners, a venture capital firm. His hands-on leadership has helped dozens of entrepreneurs and their start-ups successfully accelerate growth and create liquidity. He is also a member of the Young Leaders Circle at the Milken Institute and gives back to the community through board affiliations with the Discovery Cube and Human Options. Prior to RezVen, Berengian held senior roles at Overture and Yahoo!, where he successfully expanded global operations for innovative ad-serving technologies through strategic partnerships and tactical execution. He has a MA from the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, and a BS in Biochemistry from UCLA, where he also published numerous research papers as a Biophysics PhD.

"As a proactive, hands-on entrepreneur and VC, I will help the company accomplish two things: help companies leverage disruptive tech and access Silicon Valley thinking and capabilities," said Anderee Berengian, CEO at Cie Digital Labs. "CDL has massive potential to uncover new venture opportunities that solve clear business problems, and my mission is to accelerate each idea's momentum before it is spun out as a new, transformational company."

This story first appeared in The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones.

About Cie Digital Labs
Cie Digital Labs (CDL) is a hybrid interactive development firm and technology startup studio. Founded in 1998, CDL creates leading-edge digital solutions, serves as an innovation lab for a variety of prominent global brands, and acts as a platform to develop ideas and turn them into new technology ventures.

Cie Digital Labs blends Silicon Valley know-how, startup dynamism and speed with the business maturity of serial entrepreneurs, seasoned venture capitalists, and Fortune 500 executives. This combination gives CDL a deep understanding of how to apply the latest technology to solve strategic and operational business challenges. CDL's unique hybrid model also enables the company to identify new opportunities that CDL's startup studio incubates, develops, and accelerates into new products and companies. The leadership team at CDL collectively has played key leadership roles at a multitude of successful startups, including Overture (acquired by Yahoo!), Nativo, StyleHaul (acquired by RTL Group), and Cie Games (acquired by Glu Mobile).

Visit www.ciedigital.com to learn more.