Norwest Venture Partners Enhances Menlo Park Office with Seamless AV

Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a leading Silicon Valley-based venture capital and growth equity investment firm that has helped hundreds of companies achieve their growth potential.  

Founded in 1961, they are one of the area’s oldest and largest venture capital firms. Norwest currently manages $15.5 billion in capital, reflecting its significant role in the industry.  

The Challenge

When your client roster includes some of the biggest names in innovation, you want your office space to deliver a distinct experience. While their existing space achieved that, Norwest’s team was growing, their space was at capacity, and expanding in place would be challenging. 

In addition, Norwest has always emphasized having leading-edge technology. But they hadn’t refreshed their tech in a few years, and the pandemic revealed some new use cases they wanted to address.
 
So, when new office space became available during the pandemic, they saw it as an opportunity to expand their square footage and add new technology for the hybrid workplace. The new space in Menlo Park was in a brand-new development near the train station, complete with an outdoor courtyard and multiple Michelin-star restaurants. 

“The move to our new space gave us the opportunity to modernize our technology again, create more flexibility, and deliver a better experience — especially when people are joining meetings from more than one location,” said Rob Bedal, Vice President of IT at Norwest. 

To achieve their goals, Rob contacted Keith Gustafson, a design engineer from AVI Systems. They met years earlier when they worked together on a project.  

The Solution

Keith pulled together an internal team, including Tony Brown, an AVI Systems Executive Account Manager in Silicon Valley. Together, they kicked off the engagement by taking Rob and his team through AVI’s Pro Design process. This step helps everyone align on outcomes and identify the right tech solutions. 

In this case, Norwest wanted to create a showcase space for important conversations and to add flexible technology that integrated seamlessly with the space and was easy for employees and guests to use. They wanted all video conferencing platforms, current or in the future, to work seamlessly in all of their meeting rooms, regardless of it being Zoom, Teams, Google Meet. 

“They wanted to dial up the ‘wow factor’ in the space,” said Gustafson. “So, we took them from projectors and LED screens to large, widescreen video walls. And we recommended state-of-the-art cameras and microphones that perform much better than options available just a few years ago.”

Boardroom: The implementation included a 16-foot wide Planar video wall in their Boardroom supported by a range of products and peripherals, including an RGB Spectrum video wall processor, Crestron 1 Beyond multi-camera system, Sennheiser ceiling microphones, Innovox speaker system, Crestron control system, and Poly video conferencing. 

All-hands Flex-Space: A 20-foot wide Planar video wall takes center in their all-hands flex space with a Crestron 1 Beyond multi-camera system, Sennheiser ceiling microphones, Shure wireless microphones, Innovox speaker system, Poly video conferencing, Panasonic DLP projector, and Da-Lite screen. Behind the scenes, there’s an RGB Spectrum video wall processor, Biamp digital signal processors, and Crestron room scheduling, control systems, and switchers.  

“The technology in these spaces is modern and flexible and helps us create a seamless experience for our guests. When someone arrives, we want them to feel welcomed and know that we were expecting them,” said Katrina Imahara, Norwest’s Video Conference Specialist. 

The Results & Human Impact

“Standing out among the companies located in Silicon Valley isn’t easy. Yet, Norwest achieved that in their new office. It’s a showpiece space with impressive architecture and AV solutions,” said Brown. “We felt proud to work with a venture capital and growth equity firm as distinguished as Norwest.”

While guest experience and first impressions matter, the Norwest team also appreciates the impact the technology has on their day-to-day operations, including: 

• Meeting equity — Like many companies, Norwest wanted clients and employees to be seen and heard clearly and equally, whether they were joining the meeting in person or remote. The videoconferencing and unified collaboration technology they implemented allow people to join from anywhere and feel like they’re in the room. 
• Visitor impact — Visitors are impressed not just by the technology but by how seamlessly it integrates with the space and how flexibly it can be used. 

• Ease of use – Before this implementation, Norwest had a full-time person on staff to help employees and visitors use videoconferencing and other onsite tech. Now, employees find it easy to walk into their rooms and wirelessly share from their laptops — it’s that straightforward. This frees up their internal resources to add value at a higher level.  
• Industry showcase – Because the space integrates technology so well, Crestron has started using Norwest’s office as a demo site for some of its technology. 
  

“It was an easy choice to go with AVI, but it wasn’t easy to complete a project like this during a pandemic. It was difficult to get labor and materials on site, and there were also supply chain delays. But AVI had us up and running when we expected to be, and their effort on this project was solid from design to installation. They’re excellent partners,” said Bedal. 

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