Tom Scholl

Tom Scholl, Venture Partner, Novak Biddle Venture Partners. Tom is a successful entrepreneur, technology innovator and investor. Tom has been directly involved in over 40 start-ups with differing roles including founder, CEO/Chairman, board member and investor. He is experienced with both hardware and software products – typically created from deep intellectual property.
Most recently, Tom was Venture Partner at Novak Biddle Venture Partners in Bethesda, Maryland. As a venture capitalist for over ten years, Tom played a pivotal role identifying, investing in and counseling portfolio companies from early stage/seed investment through successful exit. He sat on the boards of Paratek (acquired by RIM/Blackberry,) Command Information (acquired by Salient Federal Solutions,) Woodwind Communications (acquired by Vina,) Vubiquity, Princeton Optronics, Centice and Fiberzone. In 2011, Tom was recognized as the venture capital “Friend of the Entrepreneur” by the Washington Business Journal.
Prior to joining Novak Biddle, Tom co-founded and was chairman of Cognio, a pioneering developer of software radio, cognitive spectrum management and MIMO antenna technology for wireless applications. Cognio was acquired by Cisco in October 2007. Tom was also a private investor in Broadsoft (IPO) and served as a Director of Torrent Networking (acquired by Ericsson,) and Integrated Telecom (acquired by PMC Sierra.)
In 1990, Tom founded Telogy Networks, a leader in providing reference designs and embedded software products for wireless and IP networks. Telogy’s world-class customers included Cisco, Motorola, Samsung, Nortel, Alcatel, NEC, Siemens and many others. In 1998, Motorola acquired Telogy’s digital mobile handset design, and in 1999 Texas Instruments acquired Telogy as the world leader in embedded VOIP software – subsequently licensing over one million VOIP “sockets.” As Telogy’s CEO, Tom was honored as the 1995 Joseph A. Sciulli “Entrepreneur of the Year” by the Maryland High Technology Council.
Prior to Telogy, Tom was Senior Vice President of Engineering at Hughes Network Systems (now a subsidiary of EchoStar.) He began his professional career as a systems programmer at the Central Intelligence Agency.
Tom is a Trustee at Stevens Institute of Technology (where he also serves as the Chairman of the Research Enterprise and Technology Commercialization Committee,) a member of the Board of Trustees at the University of Maryland Foundation and Chairman of the Board of Visitors at the A. James Clark School of Engineering. He is a past Trustee at Capitol College. Tom is a graduate of Purdue University in Philosophy and Literature, and serves as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council of the College of Liberal Arts, receiving Purdue’s Distinguished Alumnus Award for 2009.
Tom has patents relating to software, the Internet, and digital telephone systems, and he is the author of “Packet Switching” in McGraw Hill’s Electronic Communications Handbook. He’s a member of IEEE and ACM, and he attended the Executive Management (non-degree) program at MIT Sloan School.
Growing up, Tom was an avid Ham radio operator and an Eagle Scout.