Lee Hower

Co-Founder & Partner, NextView Ventures

๐Ÿ“ Greater Boston, United States๐Ÿ”„ Updated September 2026๐Ÿ’ผ 14 investments๐Ÿ“… 17 years investing๐Ÿ—“ Last invested Jan 2025๐• @upgrade_to_unlock
VC๐ŸŒ United States
14
Total investments
8
Early stage
1
Mid stage
0
Late stage
17y
Years active

Portfolio

14 investments ยท sorted by recency
All investments
Early stage
Mid stage
Late stage
Seed Investor
Jan 2025
Seneca is a resilience technology and infrastructure company. We create autonomous drones and AI-driven software to support firefighters and protect the things we love. Our mission is to eliminate wildfire threat across 500 million acres in the US and allied nations. We do so by building products that support the firefighter in use cases that were previously unsafe, inefficient, or impossible. We prioritize innovations that protect lives, property, and ecosystems. Our focus is on both initial attack operations and beneficial fire support to create a balanced wildland fire cycle over the coming decades.
Seed Investor
Sep 2024
Ultra builds intelligent warehouse robots that are being deployed in warehouses today. Our purpose-built robots are practically designed for end-to-end task automation, starting with ecommerce order packaging.
Investor & Board Member
May 2022
Invest Smart, Save Time, Scale Fast Pebbleโ€™s innovative technologies streamline critical portfolio management tasks to improve efficiency while delivering deeper insights.
Seed Investor
Aug 2021
Navier is designing and developing hybrid-electric and all-electric hydrofoiling vessel platforms for use across recreation, defense, and commercial maritime mobility. Navierโ€™s mission is to transform how the world moves on water, delivering faster, more efficient, and scalable operations through physics-driven design, autonomy, and software-defined platforms. Navierโ€™s team is based in Alameda, CA.
Investor & Board Observer
Apr 2021
Expressable provides exceptional speech therapy delivered online from the comfort of your home. We pair you with a qualified and experienced speech therapist specialized to your needs, and provide educational materials and weekly homework assignments to help you integrate practice throughout your daily life. Plus, you can securely text your therapist anytime and schedule appointments around your life - 7 days/week, mornings to evenings. See why families love Expressable (4.9/5 stars). Sign up for a free consultation today to speak with a speech therapist today!
Investor & Board Member
Feb 2021
Weve built software to streamline the prior authorization process for for life-changing specialty medications. Our software offers medical practices a cloud-based solution to submit, track, and manage prior authorizations across their many payers and drugs. By digitizing the current manual paper-and-fax-heavy process, our platform reduces the administrative burdens that make patient care worse and drive up costs.
Investor
Mar 2020
KarmaCheck is reimagining background checks and credentialing by bringing truth to the internet. Our solution leverages powerful APIs, AI capabilities, and seamless integrations to optimize the entire screening process. With a mobile-first experience and rapid responses from our in-house experts, you can count on real-time, accurate, and compliant results. Our customers build trust with their candidates quickly, enabling faster placements at a lower cost. Follow us for the latest innovations in screening technology and insights on hiring compliance and workforce trends. ๐˜๐˜ฆ๐˜ข๐˜ฅ๐˜ฆ๐˜ฅ ๐˜ฃ๐˜บ ๐˜Š๐˜Œ๐˜– ๐˜Œ๐˜ณ๐˜ช๐˜ค ๐˜“๐˜บ, ๐˜Š๐˜ฐ-๐˜ง๐˜ฐ๐˜ถ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฅ๐˜ฆ๐˜ณ ๐˜ฐ๐˜ง ๐˜“๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜ฌ๐˜ฆ๐˜ฅ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ, ๐˜’๐˜ข๐˜ณ๐˜ฎ๐˜ข๐˜Š๐˜ฉ๐˜ฆ๐˜ค๐˜ฌ ๐˜ช๐˜ด ๐˜ฑ๐˜ณ๐˜ฐ๐˜ถ๐˜ฅ ๐˜ต๐˜ฐ ๐˜ฃ๐˜ฆ ๐˜ข๐˜ต ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ฆ ๐˜ง๐˜ฐ๐˜ณ๐˜ฆ๐˜ง๐˜ณ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฏ๐˜ต ๐˜ฐ๐˜ง ๐˜ฎ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฅ๐˜ฆ๐˜ณ๐˜ฏ๐˜ช๐˜ป๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ฃ๐˜ข๐˜ค๐˜ฌ๐˜จ๐˜ณ๐˜ฐ๐˜ถ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฅ ๐˜ค๐˜ฉ๐˜ฆ๐˜ค๐˜ฌ๐˜ด ๐˜ข๐˜ฏ๐˜ฅ ๐˜ค๐˜ณ๐˜ฆ๐˜ฅ๐˜ฆ๐˜ฏ๐˜ต๐˜ช๐˜ข๐˜ญ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ.
Investor & Board Member
Nov 2019
Batteries have a big role to play in tackling the climate crisis, and itโ€™s essential to make sure that theyโ€™re safe and reliable to operate. At Zitara, we build cutting-edge software solutions that empower companies to deeply understand their batteries, both in design and deployment. Itโ€™s all part of our work to enable a renewable energy revolution, powered by safer batteries, at a lower cost, with less waste.
Investor & Board Observer
Jul 2013
Solving problems that sit at a unique intersection of hardware, tech, health, fitness and design.
Investor
Nov 2012
Skillz is the leading mobile games platform that connects players in fair, fun, and meaningful competition. The Skillz platform helps developers build multi-million dollar franchises by enabling social competition in their games. Leveraging its patented technology, Skillz hosts billions of casual esports tournaments for millions of mobile players worldwide, and distributes millions in prizes each month. Skillz has also earned recognition as one of Fast Companyโ€™s Most Innovative Companies, CNBCโ€™s Disruptor 50, Forbesโ€™ Next Billion-Dollar Startups, San Francisco Business Timesโ€™ Best Places to Work, and the #1 fastest-growing company in America on the Inc. 5000. Weโ€™re building a groundbreaking company thats pioneering an entirely new industry, and were searching for top-notch people to join our mission. If youโ€™re up for the challenge, weโ€™d love to meet you!
Investor
Jun 2012
Weโ€™re Plastiq, Powered by Priority. Weโ€™ve helped tens of thousands of businesses improve cash flow with instant access to working capital, while automating and enabling control over all aspects of accounts payable and receivable. We are now powered by Priority Technology Holdings, the 4th largest non bank payments business in the US successfully serving over 800 thousand customers on their payments and banking unified commerce platform. Our mission is to help growing businesses. Our flagship product, Plastiq Pay, pioneered a way for businesses to pay suppliers by credit card regardless of acceptance. Today, with the high cost of capital, paying suppliers with our flexible and inexpensive tools gives your business an even greater competitive edge. Scale your business by accelerating the cash conversion cycle by visiting us at https://www.plastiq.com/.
Investor & Board Observer
Apr 2011
GrabCAD is Stratasysโ€™ Premiere open software platform for additive manufacturers, engineers and designers who wish to scale their additive manufacturing production capabilities. GrabCADโ€™s software platform consists of 3 core software solutions: GrabCAD Shop, GrabCAD Print and the GrabCAD Software Development Kit. Beyond this, our ecosystem of software partners furthers our ability to lead the way in the large scale additive manufacturing industry. Additionally, the GrabCAD Community is the largest online community of professional engineers, designers, manufacturers, and STEM students on the planet. The Community is a place for thought-leadership and education for the latest in engineering, design, and manufacturing, a place where professionals can show off their skills and encourage others to learn the same.
Investor / Board Observer
Dec 2010
InsightSquared helps revenue operations professionals make better decisions by equipping them with actionable, real-time intelligence on sales and marketing KPIs. Businesses rely on the companyโ€™s solutions to forecast more accurately, better manage pipeline, tailor rep coaching based on individual performance, understand their marketing attribution, and conduct data-backed planning and analysis. For more information, visit www.insightsquared.com. InsightSquared is based in Boston and has been named a โ€œTop Place to Workโ€ by The Boston Globe and Boston Business Journal. InsightSquared was named a leader in the G2 Crowdโ€™s Business Intelligence Platform and Sales Analytics Gridsโ„ , ranking #1 in customer satisfaction for the fifth year in a row. We are hiring! Check out our open positions: http://jobs.insightsquared.com/
Investor & Advisor
Nov 2009
Powering the businesses that are the backbone of the global economy, Lightspeedโ€™s one-stop commerce platform helps merchants innovate to simplify, scale and provide exceptional customer experiences.
Experience ยท 17 entries
All (17)
Investments (14)
Founder (2)
Board (7)
2025
Seed Investor
Jan 2025
Seneca is a resilience technology and infrastructure company. We create autonomous drones and AI-driven software to support firefighters and protect the things we love. Our mission is to eliminate wildfire threat across 500 million acres in the US and allied nations. We do so by building products that support the firefighter in use cases that were previously unsafe, inefficient, or impossible. We prioritize innovations that protect lives, property, and ecosystems. Our focus is on both initial attack operations and beneficial fire support to create a balanced wildland fire cycle over the coming decades.
2024
Seed Investor
Sep 2024
Ultra builds intelligent warehouse robots that are being deployed in warehouses today. Our purpose-built robots are practically designed for end-to-end task automation, starting with ecommerce order packaging.
2022
Investor & Board Member
May 2022
Invest Smart, Save Time, Scale Fast Pebbleโ€™s innovative technologies streamline critical portfolio management tasks to improve efficiency while delivering deeper insights.
2021
Seed Investor
Aug 2021
Navier is designing and developing hybrid-electric and all-electric hydrofoiling vessel platforms for use across recreation, defense, and commercial maritime mobility. Navierโ€™s mission is to transform how the world moves on water, delivering faster, more efficient, and scalable operations through physics-driven design, autonomy, and software-defined platforms. Navierโ€™s team is based in Alameda, CA.
Investor & Board Observer
Apr 2021
Expressable provides exceptional speech therapy delivered online from the comfort of your home. We pair you with a qualified and experienced speech therapist specialized to your needs, and provide educational materials and weekly homework assignments to help you integrate practice throughout your daily life. Plus, you can securely text your therapist anytime and schedule appointments around your life - 7 days/week, mornings to evenings. See why families love Expressable (4.9/5 stars). Sign up for a free consultation today to speak with a speech therapist today!
Show all 17 entries โ†“
Investment activity
2009โ€“2025 ยท 14 investments
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