Norwest Venture Partners

Norwest Venture Partners

Type	Private
Industry	Venture capital
Founded	1961
Headquarters	Palo Alto & San Francisco, CA
Total assets	$6+ billion[1]
Number of employees	90 (2016)
Website	www.nvp.com

Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is a venture and growth equity investment firm with approximately $6B in capital under management.^[2] The firm targets early- to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, Internet and consumer, software as a service, business and financial services, and healthcare.^[1] Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Norwest has an office in San Francisco and subsidiaries in Mumbai and Bengaluru, India and Herzelia, Israel. The firm has funded more than 575 companies since inception. As of early 2016, the firm has approximately 130 active companies across its venture and growth equity portfolio.^[1]

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 Corporation, a midwestern bank based in Minneapolis that merged with Wells Fargo in 1998. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Minneapolis was an early site for both venture capital and high-technology business.^[3]

The VC industry was active with the formation of the first Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) and 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.^[4]

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.^[5] George J, Still, Jr. (now partner emeritus)^[6] and Promod Haque took over as managing partners in 1994.^[7]

In January 2016, the firm announced Norwest Venture Partners XIII, a $1.2B fund. NVP XIII marked Norwest's third consecutive $1.2B fund raised in fewer than six years.^[8] In 2016, 14 of Norwest's portfolio companies went public or were acquired. The number includes four public offerings in the U.S., India and Israel and 10 company acquisitions.^[9]

Portfolio services

Norwest provides resources to funded companies through its Portfolio Services group. Resources include strategies and services for employee talent and retention, market development, human resources, public relations and marketing, and operations. The group manages the Norwest Loop, an online community for company leaders to use for sharing information and experiences with each other and their Norwest contacts.^[10]

The Portfolio Services group also hosts events for Norwest-funded companies several times a year. Topics have included educational technology, demand generation strategies, employer branding, and an event series focused on female founders of companies.^[11]

Executives

Norwest is led by senior managing partner Promod Haque^[12] and managing partners Jeff Crowe^[13] and Matthew Howard.^[14] George J. Still, Jr., partner emeritus, was named to the Forbes Midas List in 2011.^[15]

• Promod Haque - joined Norwest in 1990. His investments have been worth more than $40B in aggregate exit value to date, as 25 of his portfolio companies have gone public and 37 have been acquired (or have gone public and been acquired).^[16] His most notable deal was cybersecurity company FireEye, which had the second-best performing initial public offering (IPO) in the U.S. in 2013.^[16] His recent investments include CognitiveScale, SlashNext,Shape Security, Health Catalyst, and CareCloud^[17]. Haque has been named to the Forbes Midas List of top tech investors since 2001, and in 2014 was named by Forbes as a “Hall of Fame” investor. 2017 marked his 13th appearance on the list, including 2004, when he was ranked the #1 venture capitalist based on performance over the previous decade.^[16]

• Jeff Crowe - joined Norwest in 2004 and became a managing partner in 2013. He worked in the tech world for 20 years as cofounder and CEO of software company Edify. In recent years, Crowe has invested in Jet.com, as well as HoneyBook and Modsy. He currently serves on the boards of public companies Lending Club (NYSE: LC) and RetailMeNot (NASDAQ: SALE) and private companies Extole, Glint, HoneyBook, Madison Reed, Modsy, Opendoor, Owler, Talkspace and Turn. Crowe is a board observer at Minted and is responsible for Norwest's investments in Jet.com (acquired by Walmart), Spotify, and Uber.^[18] He was named to the Forbes Midas List in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.^[19]

• Matthew Howard - joined Norwest in 2000 as a general partner and was named a managing partner in 2013.^[20] He has appeared on the Forbes Midas List as a top 100 investor three times and was recognized in 2013 by Business Insider as one of the “19 Best Enterprise Tech Venture Capitalists.”^[21] He focuses his efforts on mobile, security, rich media, cloud-based services/applications, networking and storage sectors. He serves on the board of several companies, including Avere Systems, Bitglass, Blue Jeans Network, Bluenose Analytics, Exabeam, Mist Systems and MobileIron (Nasdaq: MOBL). He serves on the Technical Advisory Board for In-Q-Tel's Lab 41 initiative to address mission-critical problems for the United States Intelligence Community. Before joining Norwest, Howard was an early employee of Cisco.^[22]

Investments

By stage

Venture investments: Norwest's early-stage or seed investments include such companies as Casper, CognitiveScale, Fireglass, Glint, IFTTT, and Modsy. Other Norwest-funded ventures include 6 River Systems, Act-On, Adaptive Insights, Agari, Aporeto, Bitglass, BlueJeans_Network, Borqs, Bracket Computing, Button, CareCloud, ClearDATA, Dtex Systems, Engagio, Exabeam, Exablox, Fam, Galore, HealthCatalyst, Hobnob, HoneyBook, JoyRun, Lending Club, Lumosity, Madison Reed, Minted, Mist, MobileIron, ModCloth, Motif, NextHealth Technologies, NinthDecimal, Omada Health, Opendoor, Owler, PCH International, PolicyGenius, Prevedere, Qubole, Qventus, Rallyteam, Science Exchange, Second Measure, Sensay, Shape Security, Silk Road Medical, Simpplr, SketchDeck, SlashNext, Snaproute, Sojern, Spotify, StellaService, Stratim, Talkspace, TigerText, TrustID, Uber, Udemy, and World View.

In India, Norwest's venture investments include such companies as Appnomic, Asian Genco, Attune, Capillary Technologies, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company (Chola), CRMNEXT, iProf Learning Solutions, Manthan Systems, NationWide Primary Healthcare Services, NSE, Nueclear, Ovum, Pepperfry, Perfint, Quikr, RBL Bank, RevX, Sadbhav, Snowman Logistics, Sulekha, Suvidhaa, Swiggy, Thyrocare, and Zenoti.

In Israel, Norwest's venture investments include such companies as Fireglass, Gong, Kwik, Personali, Pontis, SundaySky, Velostrata, and Weka.io.

Growth equity investments: Norwest's growth equity investments include Appriss, Avetta, Bailey44, Blue Cloud Pediatric Surgery Centers, Cority, iCardiac, Infutor, Kendra Scott Design, Manta, Medgate, Outcome Health, PCA Skin, Rainmaker, Rivermend Health, The Learning Experience, Topo Athetic, Turnitin, and Wine Access. In India, Norwest's growth investments include Asian Genco, Cholamandalam Finance, National Stock Exchange of India, Nueclear Networked Imaging Centres, RBL Bank, Sadbhav Engineering Ltd., Shriram City Union Finance, Snowman Logistics (NSE: SNOWMAN), and Thyrocare.^[23]

By sector

Enterprise, cloud and IT infrastructure: Norwest investments include 6 River Systems, Act-On, Adaptive Insights, Agari, Aporeto, Appriss, Attune, Avere Systems, Bitglass, BlueJeans Network, Borqs, Bracket Computing, Brite Semiconductor, Capillary Technologies, ClearData, CognitiveScale, Cority, CRMNEXT, Dtex Systems, Engagio, Exabeam, Extole, Fireglass, Glint, Gong, HealthCatalyst, Infutor, Manthan Systems, Mist, MobileIron, Personali, Prevedere, Qubole, Qventus, Rainmaker, Rallyteam, Science Exchange, Second Measure, Shape Security, Simpplr, SlashNext, Snaproute, TigerText, Turnitin, Velostrata, Weka.io, WorldView, and Zenoti.

Consumer/internet: Norwest investments include Bailey44, Button, Casper, Extole, Fab, Galore, Hobnob, HoneyBook, IFTTT, JoyRun, Kendra Scott, Kwik, Lending Club, Lumosity, Madison Reed, Manta, Minted, Modsy, Motif, NinthDecimal, Opendoor, Owler, PCA Skin, Pepperfry, Personali, PolicyGenius, Quikr, Rafter, RevX, Second Measure, Sensay, SketchDeck, Sojern, Spotify, StellaService, Stratim, Sulekha.com, SundaySky, Suvidhaa, Swiggy, Talkspace, The Learning Experience, Topo Athletic, Uber, Udemy, and Wine Access.

Healthcare: Norwest investments include Attune, Blue Cloud Pediatric Surgery Centers, CareCloud, ClearData, HealthCatalyst, iCardiac Technologies, iRhythm Technologies, NationWide Primary Healthcare Services, NextHealth Technologies, Nueclear Networked Imaging Centres, Omada, Outcome Health, Ovum, Perfint, Qventus, RiverMend Health, Science Exchange, Silk Road Medical, Talkspace, Thyrocare, and TigerText.

Initial public offerings

Norwest-funded companies that have filed for an initial public offering (IPO) include iRhythm Technologies (Nasdaq: IRTC), FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE) and Apigee (Nasdaq: APIC) in 2016; Lending Club (NYSE: LC), Intersect ENT (Nasdaq: XENT) in 2015; and MobileIron (Nasdaq: MOBL) in 2014.

In India, Thyrocare Technologies (NSE: THYROCARE) and RBL Bank (NSE: RBLBANK) filed for IPO status in 2016. Sadbhav Engineering Ltd. (NSE: SADBHAV) filed in 2015, and Snowman Logistics (NSE: SNOWMAN) filed in 2014.

Israel-based SolarEdge filed in 2015 (Nasdaq: SEDG).^[24]

Mergers and acquisitions

Norwest-funded companies that have merged or that have been acquired include:

• Fireglass was acquired by Symantec in July 2017.^[25]
• RetailMeNot was acquired by Harland Clarke Holdings in 2017.^[26]
• Turn was acquired by Singtel's digital ad division Amobee in 2017 for $310M.^[27]
• Skyward was acquired by Verizon in February 2017. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. ^[28]
• Apigee was acquired by Google in November 2016 for approximately $625M.^[29]
• Palerra was acquired by Oracle in September 2016.^[30]
• Jet.com was acquired in August 2016 by Walmart Stores for approximately $3B.^[31]
• Ravello Systems was acquired by Oracle for approximately $500M in March 2016.^[32]
• Clarus Commerce was acquired by Trivergance, LLC in March 2016.^[33]
• 1010data was acquired by Advance in August 2015 for $500M.^[34]
• Skybox Imaging (now Terra Bella) was acquired in June 2014 by Google for approximately $500M.^[35]
• Misfit Wearables was acquired by Fossil Group for approximately $260M in late 2015.^[36]
• Elemental was sold to Amazon for $296M.^[37]
• RiseSmart was sold to Randstad for approximately $100M.^[38]

Other mergers and acquisitions included the sale of online marketing firm AdChina to Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA),^[39] the acquisition of map tech startup deCarta by Uber,^[40] the sale of video advertising company true[x] to 21st Century Fox,^[41] the sale of software-defined networking startup ConteXtream to HP,^[42] software-defined networking company Cyan Inc. to Ciena,^[43] predictive analytics for retail businesses The Retail Equation to Appriss,^[44] big data startup Hadapt to Teradata,^[45] and the merger of Pertino with Cradlepoint.^[46]

See also

• List of venture capital firms

References

External links

• Norwest Venture Partners (company website)