Editing Canopy Group (section)

=== Background ===
As its chief executive during the 1980s and early 1990s, Ray Noorda had taken the software company [[Novell]] to a dominant position in the network operating system space<ref name="NW_FR_2001"/> and in so doing became a personal computer industry pioneer.<ref name="NYT_Lineo_2003"/>  As a result, Noorda had a reported worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars.<ref name="dh-1995-e"/><ref name="WSJ_FR_2005"/>  

The origins of the Canopy Group date to 1992, when Noorda created NFT Ventures as an arm of the [[Noorda Family Trust]].<ref name="dh-1995-e"/> NFT Ventures invested in a number of firms and helped to guide them.<ref name="dh-1995-e"/>  Through NFT Ventures and other means, Noorda had invested in several dozen start-up firms overall by 1995.<ref name="ap-1995"/>  In part, Noorda was interested in the venture capital business as a way to increase the funds that he could donate to Noorda Family Trust charities,<ref name="ZDN_settlement_2005"/> but he was also interested in making his home state of Utah a place where entrepreneurs could thrive.<ref name="DeseretNews-1"/>