Novus Ventures

Novus Ventures was a Cupertino, California-based early-stage venture capital firm founded in 1994 by Dan Tompkins and Greg Lahann, specializing in information technology and select life sciences investments. Headquartered at Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino, the firm operated with approximately six professionals including four partners; leadership included Managing General Partner Dan Tompkins and General Partner and Founding Member Shirley Cerrudo. Novus deployed Series A cheques in the $500,000 to $1 million range into US-based startups where the partners could make both financial and strategic contributions as active investor-operators. Sector concentration spanned enterprise software and applications, infrastructure, semiconductors, networking, systems, and select life sciences. Across more than 20 years of activity the firm made 71 investments and produced four acquisition exits. Notable portfolio companies include MBlox, a mobile messaging company acquired by CLX Communications in 2016; Voltaix, a specialty electronic materials company acquired by Air Liquide in 2013; Tidal Software, a workload automation platform acquired by Cisco; Pathwork Diagnostics, a cancer diagnostics company; and LoveTheSign, an Italian designer-furniture e-commerce platform that represented the firm's last recorded investment in April 2015. Novus Ventures is now permanently closed and no longer makes new investments. The entity continues to exist primarily for legacy portfolio management. Its 20-year record spanning Silicon Valley's enterprise software and semiconductor buildout stands as a complete chapter of early-stage IT investing in the region.