Novus Ventures

Dan Turner, who co-founded the firm in 1996, has been the primary investment decision-maker for the firm's history. Turner's background as a founder who exited an electronic design automation company before launching Novus gave him direct technical operator credibility with the semiconductor and systems founders the firm targeted.

Novus historically invested at seed and Series A stages. The firm was among the first institutional checks into hardware and infrastructure software companies, typically leading or co-leading early rounds.

Novus concentrates on enterprise infrastructure, including semiconductors, embedded software, networking, and cybersecurity. The firm has historically avoided consumer internet, mobile applications, and enterprise SaaS — a deliberate sector exclusion that differentiated it from most Sand Hill Road funds during the Web 2.0 era.

Novus operated from Cupertino rather than Sand Hill Road, and its deal flow relied heavily on Turner's deep ties to the semiconductor and hardware engineering community that concentrated in the South Bay and extending to Texas and Massachusetts. The firm sourced by mining a specific technical community rather than competing in the broader Stanford-to-San Francisco startup pipeline.

The firm's current deployment posture is not publicly disclosed. The last known formal fundraise predates 2015, and Novus does not maintain a publicly accessible institutional profile or actively market itself to LPs. If the firm is deploying capital, it is doing so quietly and likely from existing committed fund vehicles.