Peter Fenton was one of the lead partners behind the investments in SpringSource and FriendFeed.  Both of these companies were acquired this past Monday.  SpringSource was acquired for $420 million by VMWare and FriendFeed was acquired by Facebook for about $50 million.

Fenton also sits on Twitter’s and Yelp’s board of directors. Benchmark started in 1995 and manages about $2.5 billion in assets.  Benchmark made a substantial amount by investing early in eBay too.

Fenton’s staregy for choosing the right companies to invest in is based on when the company’s adoption curve meets the declining risk curve.  “The challenge is to identify the acceleration/adoption phase before it’s obvious.”  Before SpringSource was acquired, he was deeply involved in the $10 million investment into the company.

[via VentureBeat]