Next Level Ventures – a Des Moines based venture capital firm – announced Tej Dhawan as a senior advisor Wednesday according to a news release.
Dhawan will assist in making investments and managing portfolio companies, according to the release.
Dhawan is a partner with the Urbandale-based Entrepreneurial Technologies and is involved with Plains Angels, the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator and the Global Insurance Accelerator.
He’s also a graduate and board member at Central College in Pella, Iowa.
Dhawan told Clay & Milk Wednesday afternoon his roles will not change with any of his current responsibilities, this just adds to them.
“This role will be advisory, so when somebody comes up for funding and the Next Level Venture team is doing due-diligence on it I would be one of the people providing input,” Dhawan said. “The way I look at it when you are doing due-diligence on an investment, the more diverse set of opinions you can get on that the better.”
Dhawan was coming from a company’s office Wednesday and said visiting existing companies in the workplace is a part of the job.
“That touch, feel and smell of the investment,” Dhawan says.
In May Dhawan wrote a guest commentary piece for Clay & Milk on diversity.
Craig Ibsen, Next Level Venture’s Managing Principal, said in the release Dhawan brings a unique skill set to the firm.
“We are excited to have Tej Dhawan advise us with making and managing investments around Iowa,” Ibsen said. “He has a unique set of skills as both an experienced executive and an investor, and we are thankful to have him work with our team.”