Don’t Have Ties to Washington? You’d Better Hire Some, Fast
Jack Biddle, the co-founder of Novak Biddle Venture Partners in Bethesda, Md., knows a few things about how things work in Washington. His father was a lobbyist for the computer industry for 30 years, so he “grew up at the intersection of government and technology.” And like Valhalla Partners in Vienna, Va., Paladin Capital Group in Washington, and a number of other East Coast venture firms, Novak Biddle has also long called the government a customer of some of its portfolio companies -- a number of which have spun out of government research projects, as well as received federal funding. I talked with Biddle earlier today about President Obama’s stimulus bill, and how VCs can help their portfolio companies access some of the capital destined to flow into education, rural communications, clean energy, and other areas of interest to the industry. His message to his peers was very straightforward: If you don’t have ties to Washington already, you’d better procure some, fast.
