3 partners launch Novy, Iowa’s first venture studio

CEDAR RAPIDS — Three experienced Iowa startup leaders have launched Novy, the first venture studio in Iowa.

Novy will co-found, fund and grow software companies starting in the health care industry.

Each company will receive up to $1 million in direct capital investment, two full-time executive leaders, in-house product development support, and a full suite of back office services, including finance and human resources, for a total investment of more than $2 million.

“There’s nothing like this in Iowa,” said Krista Martin, one of the founding partners. “The venture studio model surrounds founders with all of the resources they need to build rapidly with the appropriate funding, talent and network. I have seen firsthand how venture studios can strengthen the startup ecosystem, and create successful businesses.”

The three partners — Martin, David Tominsky and Eric Engelmann — have worked with hundreds of startups for more than a decade.

Engelmann founded the health care software company Geonetric in Cedar Rapids, as well as the non-profit NewBoCo and its Iowa Startup Accelerator program, and venture capital fund ISA Ventures.

Tominsky founded an IT recruiting company, then led the Iowa Startup Accelerator. Most recently, he was the chief relationship officer at NewBoCo, where he led technical and creative services teams building products and prototypes for startups.

Martin has operated and advised many startups as a product management and growth executive. Before starting her own consulting business, she was the second employee at Boardable and helped grow the business from launch to $5 million in revenue as the vice president of product and growth.

“No one has built a venture studio in Iowa before, so we’re building it from our shared experiences and extensive research into the top venture studios from around the world,” Tominsky said in a news release. “We'll run our ideation and validation phases first and expect to create our first company in 2024.”

Novy plans to build a team of 15 by the end of 2024 to focus on creating and growing highly scalable technology companies in the Midwest.

Highly selective

Novy will be highly selective in the companies it chooses to co-found, expecting only one or two per year, the partners said.

“This fills a major gap in the region,” Engelmann said. “We have venture capital, we have accelerators, we have fractional executives, but it’s piecemeal and fragmented. This brings everything together in one place.”

The team has defined a six-stage process: ideation and validation led by Tominsky; creation and growth led by Martin; and spinout and exit led by Engelmann. The process is designed to repeatedly build scalable health care software companies.

“Novy could be a game changer for some of the health care ideas being formulated at the University of Iowa,” Jon Darsee, the university’s chief innovation officer, said in the news release. “The combination of substantial capital with executive leadership is very hard to come by, and this has the potential to unlock a lot of the university’s research.”

More information is avialable at novyventures.com or by calling the team at (319) 214-0292.