About this website
This website is the home of NovaQuest Ventures, founded by Michael Sauvante, an entrepreneur with over 30 years business experience. He has founded and run over a half dozen small companies, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Along the way he accumulated a great deal of knowledge about entrepreneurism and all the issues that entrepreneurs have to contend with. He has had considerable start-up experience which has led him down many paths, including: extensive experience with new venture definition and creation, team building, fund raising, licensing, patents, joint venture agreements, mergers and acquisitions, spin-outs, and the whole topic of sustainability and the triple bottom line (social, environmental and economic bottom lines). His full bio is below.
Biography of Michael Sauvante
Mr. Sauvante is the founder of NovaQuest Ventures and is the principal author of the eBook, So, You Want To Be An Entrepreneur?.
Mr. Sauvante has over 30 years business experience in creating and running his own companies. He is recognized and respected as an expert in the start-up phase of business development; is quite knowledgeable and experienced in licensing, and occasionally even wears an “inventor’s hat.” One of Mr. Sauvante’s strongest attributes is his ability to build relationships and alliances between various parties.
In addition to his many talents as an entrepreneur and sometime inventor, Mr. Sauvante is also known for his very progressive thinking in the field of sustainability and corporate social and environmental behavior and responsibility. To learn about Mr. Sauvante’s philosophy for building a sustainable business, read his article The Triple Bottom Line: A Boardroom Guide, published in the “Director’s Monthly” newsletter of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Also see an article written about him in the Ventura County Reporter, "Watch Out For Flying Pigs"and "Lessons from Mindfull Corporations" which appeared in the Sept./Oct 2003 issue of Spirituality & Health.
Lastly, in "Megatrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism" Patricia Aburdeen, co-author of the Megatrends series of books which have sold over 14 million copies, wrote about Mr. Sauvante's efforts to change California's laws to make corporations more socially and environmentally responsible.
Currently Mr. Sauvante is the Chairman and chief architect of the CEED Program, a for-profit program under a non-profit umbrella, designed to facilitate the greening of communities all across the country and the pro-active creation of thousands of new small green companies serving those communities, who need to hire hundreds of thousands, if not millions of new green collar workers.
Drawing upon his three decades of experience in new venture creation, Mr. Sauvante designed a program to provide the three critical elements that virtually every entrepreneur needs in founding a new business - know-how, capital and credit as described in detail here. This program includes a breakthrough model for bringing large amounts of institutional funds down to local small companies as described here and a non-profit owned green bank (CalGreen Bank) as described here.
Previously, Mr. Sauvante co-founded a high technology holding company (Seertech Corporation, 2005-2007) to consolidate multiple companies (Rolltronics, VoltaFlex and InnoSigns) launched by Mr. Sauvante and to provide a platform for growing new ones. He was the entrepreneurial catalyst and visionary of the team. Unfortunately for all involved, this family of companies were brought down by a small group of investors who took actions that wrecked havoc for all and initiated deliberate smear campaigns against some.*
Mr. Sauvante founded and built Rolltronics Corporation (1998-2005, CEO) and VoltaFlex Corporation (2003-2005, CEO), two companies leveraging a new manufacturing methodology called “roll-to-roll” production (resembles printing newspapers) that is revolutionizing the way many new high tech products will be made.
Those projects evolved from pioneering work Mr. Sauvante did when he was brought into HP Labs as a consultant and subsequently asked to stay. He agreed to work for them for a year (1997-98), during which time he self initiated a new business development project intended to take technologies that were not finding commercial outlets within the company and provide them a more conducive environment to survive and grow.
In support of his efforts, Mr. Sauvante solicited and obtained assistance and input from Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen, author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma” and “The Innovator’s Solution” and Dr. Mark Rice, co-author of “Radical Innovation: How Mature Companies Can Outsmart Upstarts” and subsequent Dean at Babson.
Along the way, his efforts attracted sufficient attention that he was invited by the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to use the project as the basis for a special Ph.D. program on the topic of “New Venture Creation In Mature Companies.” He subsequently elected to return to his entrepreneurial roots and put the Ph.D. project on the shelf for the time being.
Before working at HP, he founded and managed an IT consulting company ("NovaQuest", a sole proprietorship 1991-1997); a software company that developed an international trade database related to commodity classification and customs duty rates ("NovaQuest/proQuaestus", General Partner in a limited partnership 1987-89); a company that specialized in telecommunications systems ("Interconnect Options", a sole proprietorship" 1981-1987); a real estate development company that led the initial development phase of a 700-acre high technology industrial park in Fremont, California ("Warm Springs Development Associates", General Partner 1979-81); and lastly a services company in the heavy equipment field of the construction industry ("I.E.S. Construction Services", General Partner 1077-79).
In 2002, Mr. Sauvante was recognized by the World Economic Forum from Davos Switzerland as one of approximately 35 "Technology Pioneers" selected from around the world.
Mr. Sauvante has been married for 37 years and has one married son who is a lawyer. He has a dual Bachelor's degree in Business Administration and Technologies Studies and advises a variety of firms on the topics of new venture creation, technology commercialization and how to apply triple bottom line principles in a business context. Among his many activities, he is writing and promoting more progressive laws concerning corporations. He can be reached at sauvante at novaquest dot org or at (650) 641-1246.
* Note: The Internet is a wonderful place to find useful information. It's also a very effective way to spread rumors, innuendo and lies about people and organizations. This negative information unfortunately doesn't go away with time; once on the Net, always on the Net. Michael Sauvante and several of his business colleagues have been victims of a smear campaign, some of it posted online. To provide balance, a website has been established to present the other side of the story. Interested parties can see that information at http://www.4therecord.info.