Venture capital firm Highland Capital Partners has appointed Manish Patel as a principal.

Based in Highland's Menlo Park office, Patel will expand Highland's reach into Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial community and help identify and work with the next crop of start-ups.

Patel joins Highland from Google where he has held diverse product management and executive management roles. His experience ranged from serving as a lead product manager for Google's advanced imagery and 3D mapping initiatives to helping grow the company's advertising and syndication efforts into billion dollar businesses. He was also the product manager responsible for launching the first search and recommendation engine for Google's TV initiative.

"Manish brings exceptional domain experience from leading key initiatives at Google along with an excellent reputation within the entrepreneur community," says Peter Bell, general partner with Highland. "He'll be a great addition to our West Coast office and we're thrilled to have him onboard."

Patel has worked closely with social entrepreneurs in East Africa and is actively involved with the non-profit community in the Bay Area.