[2] Prior to August Capital, Marquardt was a co-founder of Technology Venture Investors (TVI) in 1980 where he was involved in four highly successful funds that invested in more than 100 start-up and emerging growth companies.

Among these early investments was Microsoft, where TVI was the sole investor and where Marquardt served on the board of directors from 1981 until 2014.

[2][3][4] However, Microsoft did not need the venture capital investment and took on TVI in preparation for going public.

[5] Marquardt has been involved in every phase of the entrepreneurial process from seed investments to classic venture financings, mergers & acquisitions, public offerings and restructuring & privatizations.

Previously, he was a design engineer and development manager at Diablo Systems (acquired by Xerox) where he collaborated on and/or led various disk drive and printer programs.