Innovator of the Year

Neis invests in the cutting edge

John Neis Co-founder and managing director of Venture Investors LLC, Madison

No more Mr., um, Neis guy?

Don’t tell that to those with whom John Neis has done business in Wisconsin.

“John was on my company’s board of directors for more than a decade, and his office is across the street from us, so I’ve gotten to know him well,” said Kevin Conroy, CEO of Madison-based Third Wave Technologies Inc. “He projects a kind of regular guy mentality but is exceedingly bright, incredibly analytical and has great business instincts.”

No kidding. Neis’ company is Venture Investors LLC, an early stage venture capital firm with offices in Madison and Ann Arbor, Mich. He is a managing director and leads its health-care practice.

The company just finished raising $115 million for the fourth fund it has set up to invest in biotechnology companies. Neis was among the first investors in biotech firms like Madison-based TomoTherapy Inc., which went public in April after starting 10 years ago with a couple of professors. The company now has 600 employees.

Furthermore, Neis was one of the early investors in NimbleGen Systems Inc., which was another university start-up in Madison and was recently purchased by Roche Pharmaceuticals.

To mark his efforts, Neis won the Innovator of the Year Award from The Daily Reporter and Wisconsin Builder for being a true leader on the cutting edge of venture capital and investments in Wisconsin.

“John’s been a valuable business partner to TomoTherapy in addition to being the first venture investor in our business,” said Fred Robertson, CEO of TomoTherapy. “He’s been an extraordinarily effective board member and a patient investor.”

Successful though he may be, Neis doesn’t approach the job in a typical fashion, said Conroy.

“I spent a few years in the venture capital world, and John doesn’t carry with him the arrogance that some venture capitalists do,” he said. “I don’t think John has changed in the last 20 years. He was an active, vigilant board member who dug into details and knows his stuff.”

Knowing his stuff is one thing; parlaying that knowledge into astute decisions in his field is quite another. Neis accomplished that and is cultivating an enviable reputation outside the state as well.

“I’d say John is well known not only throughout Wisconsin but the Midwest as well,” said Chris Prestigiacomo, a member of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. “I think he’s one of the first, from the venture capitalist standpoint, to see the opportunities that were taking place within the Madi-son area when the biotech, life science technologies were coming out.”

Besides TomoTherapy, Neis also serves on the boards of Virent Energy Systems Inc. and Deltanoid Pharma-ceuticals Inc., both based in Madison, and is a member of the patent advisory group of the National Venture Capital Association. In March, he testified before the House Small Business Committee on behalf of the NVCA regarding the potential negative consequences of patent reform proposals on small business and innovation.

Conroy, for one, doesn’t need any convincing of what Neis brings to the table.

“I’m not a guy who likes to keep a venture capitalist on a board of directors, but I wish I could have kept him on mine,” he said. “He was that good, thorough, diligent and helpful. I’d invest with John in a nanosecond.”

By Chuck Green