Portfolio Profiles – Novak Biddle Venture Partners –

RESTON, Va. – Novak Biddle Venture Partners exclusively invests in early-stage information technology and communications companies in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States.

The firm’s most recent vehicle, Novak Biddle Venture Partners II LP, wrapped on $60 million in May, and at press time it had made seven investments. General Partner Jack Biddle was expecting to fully commit or invest the fund in 15 companies by the end of 1999.

The firm’s maiden fund, Novak Biddle Venture Partners I LP, closed on $23.4 million in 1997 and is fully invested in 13 companies.

Novak Biddle prefers to be the sole or lead investor in an early-stage company’s first institutional round of financing, putting up between $100,000 to $2 million in a company over time. The firm also works with a syndicate of limited partners and venture firms to back later-stage companies with larger rounds of financing.

Limited partners for the two funds include the Bell Atlantic Asset Management Co., BT Investment Partners, Mercantile-Safe Deposit & Trust Co., Riggs Capital Partners, Scott & Stringfellow Inc., St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co. and Union Bank of Switzerland Capital LLC.

Roger Novak and Jack Biddle are general partners at the firm. Steve Fredrick is a partner and Joy Binford is the chief financial officer. Andrea Kauffman and Phillip Bronner are associates.

The firm’s advisory board includes Frank Bonsal, co-founder of New Enterprise Associates; Neill Brownstein, co-founder of Bessemer Venture Partners; Michael Faherty, co-founder of Business Development Partners; Michael Galvin, chief executive officer at Galvin Enterprises; Gideon Gartner, founder and CEO of Gartner Group; Stewart Greenfield, co-founder of Oak Capital Management; C. Alan Peyser, founder and CEO of Cable & Wireless Inc.; and M. Dendy Young, CEO of GTSI Inc. and founder of Falcon MicroSystems Inc.

Following are some of the Novak Biddle portfolio companies:

Blackboard Inc. (Washington) offers products and services that enable educational institutions, instructors and students to use the Internet for a wide range of purposes including long-distance learning.

Co-investors included Internet Capital Group, The Carlyle Group, Aurora Funds and Merrill Lynch.

Engenia Software Inc. (Reston, Va.) develops Engenia Unity, a desktop portal on which custom business applications are built.

St. Paul Venture Capital and Aurora Funds were co-investors.

Entevo Corp. (Arlington, Va.) designs, develops and markets a suite of management products that deploy, integrate, administer and maintain enterprise directory services, a new type of computing structure that outperforms networks.

Co-investors included New Enterprise Associates, Oak Investment Partners, Freedman Billings Ramsey, Boulder Ventures, Mellon Bank and SAP Corp.

Explore Inc. (Dickeysville, Md.) provides before- and after-school learning programs that offer hands-on experience, study skills support, teacher assistance and leadership experiences.

Giga Information Group Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) provides research, advice and continuous coaching on e-business technology.

Co-investors included RRE Investors and Geocapital.

LifeMinders.com Inc. (Herndon, Va.) offers a free e-mail service that sends its users reminders organized in a variety of categories.

Co-investors included ABS Ventures, U.S. Trust Co. and Lycos Ventures.

Paratek Microwave Inc. (Columbia, Md.) designs and manufactures radio frequency tunable components and low-cost, phased array antennas.

There were no co-investors.

Spyrus (Santa Clara, Calif.) allows individuals and enterprises to protect their valued digital properties with high assurance public key security.

There were no co-investors.

Tantivy Communications Inc. (Melbourne, Fla.) provides wireless network access products that integrate high-speed data transmission with voice communications.

New Enterprise Associates, Venrock Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners and Intel Corp. were co-investors.

Telogy Networks Inc. (Germantown, Md.) provides embedded communications software to global equipment manufacturers. The software enables manufacturers to develop connected products that send real-time voice, fax and data over multiple types of networks.

Co-investors included Weiss Peck & Greer, Motorola Corp. and ABS Ventures.

Woodwind Communication Systems Inc. (Frederick, Md.) develops systems that accelerate the deployment of advanced, integrated communications services for small offices.

Boulder Ventures was a co-investor.

Novak Biddle Venture Partners is located at 1897 Preston White Drive, Reston VA 20191. tel: (703) 264-7904, fax: (703) 264-1438. The firm’s Web site is http://www.novakbiddle.com/.