Sequoia Capital hires Admob founder to ramp up investments in mobile

High-profile venture firm Sequoia Capital has appointed Admob‘s founder Omar Hamoui as its newest partner.

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Hamoui’s focus is early-stage investments, including mobile, the firm tells me, and he’ll be based in Silicon Valley. He’ll be working closely with other partners in that area, Tim Lee and Jim Goetz.

Hamoui has been on VentureBeat’s radar for years. He won the startup competition “Innovation Showdown,” at VentureBeat’s inaugural MobileBeat conference in 2008. His first speaking gig as a Sequoia investor will be at our upcoming MobileBeat, which takes place on July 9-10 in San Francisco.

This “follows a pattern at Sequoia of hiring operating partners who we’ve previously backed,” said a Sequoia spokesperson. Previously, the firm hired Alfred Lin, the number two exec at portfolio company, Zappos; and Aaref Hilaly, CEO of Clearwell.

The firm has had a long-standing relationship with Hamoui. The entrepreneur incubated Admob at Sequoia in 2006, and within three years, Google had acquired it for a $750 million. Hamoui also founded startup accelerator Churn Labs, which was shut down in May 2012 after the entrepreneurs left for various startup jobs.

Hamoui sold his most recently company, a social polling startup called Maybe Inc., to LinkedIn. While building Maybe, he also made some strategic investments in early-stage startups such as Gigwalk and Card.io.