Over the past 21 years, Promod Haque has thrived as a member of Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Mr. Haque joined NVP in 1989 to perform due diligence on the firm’s high-technology investment prospects and shortly thereafter in 1990, the firm hired Haque on a full-time basis. . Capitalizing on his operational expertise and technical background, Mr. Haque has served as a key player in NVP’s highly successful venture capital team throughout the decades.
Mr. Haque made his mark in the 1990’s on such deals as Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM) and Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), generating returns of 32.0 and 23.0 times the firm’s initial investment, respectively. During the same time period, Mr. Haque led a seminal investment in Extreme Networks. Extreme was exceptionally successful, and with the help of a white-hot IPO market, delivered returns to NVC of more than $700 million, representing an astounding multiple of 95.0 times its initial investment. Mr. Haque also funded optical equipment maker Cerent Corporation, which Cisco Systems, Inc. purchased in 1999 for $7.3 billion, providing NVP with a return on investment of 125 times.
Mr. Haque has invested in more than 60 companies since he began his venture career, producing nearly $30B in exit values to date. More than 20 of his portfolio companies have gone public and nearly 35 have been acquired (or have gone public and been acquired). Mr. Haque continues to focus on investments across a wide variety of sectors including systems and IT infrastructure, software and services.
Mr. Haque has served or continues to assist as a Director on the boards of more than 30 companies. He also sits on the Advisory Board of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, where he earned his MBA. In 2010, Mr. Haque addressed future venture capital professionals as part of the Kellogg Distinguished Lecture Series, expounding the value of properly assessing customer demand when deciding whether to invest in a new technology venture.
Born and raised in India, Mr. Haque moved to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies in electrical engineering at Northwestern University. Forbes’ The Midas List of the nation’s top investors has honored him nine times.
No comments yet.