Novak Biddle Venture Partners

Novak Biddle Venture Partners (NBVP) is a Bethesda, Maryland-based venture capital firm founded in 1997 by Roger Novak and A.G.W. 'Jack' Biddle III to provide equity financing and operational assistance to early-stage information technology companies, principally in the Mid-Atlantic region. The firm is backed by some of the country's most prestigious institutional limited partners and has raised six funds totaling more than $580 million in cumulative assets under management, including Fund V at $227 million. The team has included General Partners Roger Novak, Jack Biddle, Philip Bronner, Andrea Kaufman, and Tom Scholl. NBVP leads rounds and has been one of the most active early-stage IT investors in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore corridor, with 183 lifetime investments and 53 portfolio exits. Investment activity spans seed through growth stages in IT — communications, consumer and internet, education, security, services, and software. Notable portfolio companies include Blackboard, the leading higher-education learning management system that IPO'd on Nasdaq and was later acquired by Providence Equity Partners; Convio, a nonprofit CRM that IPO'd on Nasdaq and was acquired by Blackbaud; Parchment, an academic credentials platform; Approva, a compliance solution acquired by Infor; and Adwerx. The most recent disclosed exit was PlayMetrics in June 2025. NBVP's value to portfolio companies has long extended beyond capital to include hands-on operational guidance informed by decades of company-building experience in the Mid-Atlantic tech ecosystem. The firm appears to be in late portfolio-management mode as no new funds have been announced in recent years, with its focus shifted to supporting existing holdings through exits.