Norwest Venture Partners

Norwest Venture Partners

Type	Private
Industry	Private equity
Founded	1961
Headquarters	Palo Alto, California, United States
Products	Venture capital
Total assets	$3.7 billion
Employees	50+ (2010)
Website	www.nvp.com

Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a global, multi-stage investment firm focused on investments in early to late stage venture and growth equity investments in U.S. and global companies across a wide range of sectors including: information technology, business services, financial services and consumer.

The firm, which traces its roots back to 1961, manages more than $3.7 billion in venture capital and has funded over 450 companies since inception.

The firm is headquartered in Palo Alto, California with offices in Mumbai and Bangalore, India and Herzelia, Israel.

History

Norwest Venture Partners traces its roots back to 1961 with the formation of the Northwest Venture Fund, a private equity and venture capital affiliate of Norwest, a midwestern bank based in Minneapolis that merged with Wells Fargo in 1998. .^[1] In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Minneapolis was an early site for both venture capital and high technology business and the venture capital industry was active with the formation of the first Small Business Investment Company (SBIC), First Midwest Capital Corporation. In 1957, Control Data Corporation, a pioneering supercomputer company, was founded by William Norris. Two years later Norris was instrumental in the formation of the Northwest Growth Fund and the firm was active in the Minneapolis high tech industry.

History of private equity and venture capital

Early history (Origins of modern private equity) • The 1980s (LBO boom) • The 1990s (LBO bust and the VC bubble) • The 2000s (Dot-com bubble to the credit crunch)

v · d · e

The Northwest Growth Fund grew under the leadership of CEO Robert Zicarelli including the opening of an office in Silicon Valley. Zicarelli retired in 1988 and was succeeded by Daniel Haggerty who retired in the 1990s.^[2]

Investments

NVP makes early to late stage venture and growth equity investments in both U.S. and global companies across a wide range of sectors.

The firm typically invests between $10 million and $15 million in each company over time although it may invest smaller amounts (as little as $1 million to $5 million) and as much as $25 million to $30 million. NVP is frequently the sole or lead venture capital investor although they will partner with other venture capital firms, corporate partners and founding investors.

NVP has funded such companies as Actel Corporation, Cerent (acquired by Cisco Systems), Documentum (acquired by EMC), Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), PeopleSoft (acquired by Oracle), Appnomic Systems and Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM).

Norwest Venture Partners provided venture capital to PeopleSoft and NVP's George Still, served on the company’s board of directors for more than 10 years. During the tenure of NVP's investment, PeopleSoft grew from a start-up to an S&P 500 company with revenues in excess of $2 billion until it was acquired by Oracle for over $10 billion in January 2005.^[3][4]

Investment team

The firm’s U.S. investment team includes Robert Abbott, Timothy Chang, Jeffrey Crowe, Vab Goel, Joshua Goldman, Promod Haque, Matthew Howard, Jon Kossow, Jim Lussier, Venkat Mohan, Sergio Monsalve and George J. Still, Jr. The firm’s India investment team includes Promod Haque, Niren Shah, Sohil Chand and Mohan Kumar. Dror Nahumi focuses on investments in Israel.

Partners Promod Haque^[5] and Matthew Howard^[6] have been named to the Forbes Midas list since 2001 and 2006, respectively.

References

1. ^ Richard Florida (Carnegie Mellon University) and Martin Kenney (Ohio State University). Venture Capital and High Technology Entrepreneurship. Elsevier Science Publishing Co, 1988
2. ^ EXECUTIVE CHANGES: Norwest Venture Capital Management. New York Times, November 28, 1988
3. ^ * Oracle closes PeopleSoft acquisition
4. ^ Cisco Systems to acquire Cerent Corporation
5. ^ Promod Haque Forbes Midas List 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001
6. ^ Matthew Howard - Forbes Midas List 2008, 2007, 2006

• NVP - Our Story
• Norwest Venture Partners forms new early-stage fund. San Jose Business Journal, April 17, 2006
• Saving Yipes. Forbes, July 17, 2002
• Old Money Chasing the New; Seeing Windfalls, Big Banks Finance Start-Ups Again. New York Times, December 24, 1999

External links

• Norwest Venture Partners (company website)