Venture Capital · Profile from Venture Capital Research Companion
Norwest Venture Partners
The Minneapolis bank-affiliated venture fund of 1961 that became a Menlo Park multi-stage investor with a single dominant LP — Wells Fargo — using that captive, evergreen-like capital base to run early-stage venture, minority growth equity, healthcare, India and Israel strategies side by side, and to scale from ~$1.2bn funds to ~$3bn funds and ~$15.5bn of capital under management by 2024.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1961, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as the Northwest venture / growth fund affiliate of Northwest Bancorporation (later Norwest Corporation)
- Founders
- Established by Northwest Bancorporation; early leadership under Robert Zicarelli (CEO until 1988), followed by Daniel Haggerty
- Headquarters
- Menlo Park, California (Silicon Valley office opened in the 1980s; HQ later moved there); offices in San Francisco, Mumbai/Bengaluru (India) and Tel Aviv (Israel)
- Ownership / structure
- Private partnership; Wells Fargo is the main limited partner (since the 1998 Norwest–Wells Fargo merger; sole LP in NVP XIII, major LP in later funds). Separate from Norwest Equity Partners and Norwest Mezzanine Partners, whose Wells Fargo fund stakes were sold in 2023
- Leadership (2026)
- Managing partners include Jeff Crowe (joined 2004; managing partner since 2013) and Jon Kossow; Promod Haque (joined 1990; managing partner from 1994) as senior managing partner; general partners across consumer, enterprise, fintech, healthcare, India and Israel (verify current roster)
- AUM / capital raised
- ~$15.5bn capital under management after NVP XVII ($3bn, April 2024); prior funds $1.2bn (XIII, 2016), $1.5bn (XIV, 2018), $2bn (XV, 2019), $3bn (XVI, 2021)
- Stage focus
- Multi-stage: seed/Series A–B venture, growth equity (often first institutional money into profitable founder-owned companies), healthcare and India; cheques from ~$1m to $100m+
- Signature investments
- LendingClub, Apigee, Adaptive Insights, Health Catalyst, Udemy, Swiggy, Opendoor, Talkspace, Vuori, Kendra Scott, Plaid, Uber, Spotify (in part via The Echo Nest), Turnitin, Silk Road Medical, RetailMeNot, Kayak; disappointments: Casper (IPO below private value, taken private), Talkspace (SPAC collapse), LendingClub's 2016 governance crisis
9 deals and moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2007
LendingClub
Series A
2011
Adaptive Insights
Growth-Stage Venture Round
2013
Health Catalyst
Series B
2014
Casper
Seed and Series A
2014
Udemy
Series C
2015
Swiggy
Series B
2016
Opendoor
Series D
2016
Talkspace
Series B
2019
Vuori
Growth Equity