Brent Ahrens, General Partner, Canaan Partners
Skip Baldino, President & CEO, EndoGastric Solutions
Michael Carusi, General Partner, Advanced Technology Ventures
Jordan Davis, Managing Partner, Radius Ventures
Arda M. Minocherhomjee, Ph.D, Partner, Chicago Growth Partners
Kunal Paymaster, Principal, SightLine Partners
Alejandro Sanchez, Managing Director, Canepa Healthcare
Brent Ahrens, General Partner, Canaan Partners
Mr. Ahrens is a General Partner with the Canaan Partners (Canaan), an early stage Life Sciences and IT venture capital fund, and sits on the board of directors for EndoGastric Solutions (EGS). Prior to his tenure at Canaan, Mr. Ahrens worked for GSI, where he managed business development, marketing and sales efforts. In addition to his experience at GSI, he also worked for the Ethicon Endo-Surgery division of Johnson & Johnson, where he was involved in product development. He previously was a Senior Research Engineer at IAP Research.
Mr. Ahrens is the holder of three patents relating to medical technologies. He sits on the boards of Coapt Systems, CoAxia, Novare Surgical Systems, Pavad Medical, Relievant Medsystems, and other private boards.
Skip Baldino, President & Chief Executive Officer, EndoGastric Solutions
Mr. Baldino has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Just prior to his role at EndoGastric Solutions (EGS), he served four years as President, Americas for Given Imaging, a world leader in GI medical devices. Given Imaging offers healthcare providers a range of innovative options for visualizing, diagnosing, and monitoring the digestive system. Covidien completed its acquisition of Given Imaging in February 2014 in an $860 million deal (Medtronic has now acquired Covidien).
Prior to Given Imaging, he enjoyed a distinguished 26-year career at Abbott Laboratories, a worldwide diversified healthcare company. While there, Mr. Baldino established an outstanding track record of consistent and high performing financial and organizational success. His experience encompasses various key customer segments, as well as a wide range of product portfolios, product life-cycles, new product launches, and integrations. As a divisional Vice President, he held key commercial leadership roles in Diabetes Care, Diagnostics, Medical Products (Corporate), Hospital Products (now known as Hospira), Health Systems, and Specialty Products.
Michael Carusi, General Partner, Advanced Technology Ventures
Mr. Carusi joined Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV) in 1998, where he focused on investments in the life sciences and medical device sectors. In addition to EndoGastric Solutions, Mr. Carusi currently serves on the boards of several ATV portfolio companies including Emphasys Medical, GI Dynamics, GluMetrics, Plexxikon, TranS1, and XTENT.
Prior to joining ATV, Mr. Carusi served as the Director of Business Development for Inhale Therapeutic Systems (now Nektar Therapeutics), a venture-backed pulmonary drug delivery company that went public in 1994. At Inhale, he lead partnering activities with a number of well-established pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Mr. Carusi was also a Principal at The Wilkerson Group, a strategic ATV partner and leading management consulting firm focused exclusively on healthcare. At The Wilkerson Group, he helped establish the firm’s offices in London and San Francisco.
Jordan Davis, Managing Partner, Radius Ventures
Mr. Davis is a founder and Managing Partner of Radius Ventures (Radius), a venture capital firm focused on expansion stage and growth equity investments in the health and life sciences industry. Over the past 25 years, he has founded, advised, and invested in over 50 innovative healthcare, medtech, and life sciences companies. At Radius, Mr. Davis has led investments in numerous leading companies that have achieved notable exits. These exits include BEI Medical Systems (acquired by Boston Scientific), Conor MedSystems (acquired by J&J), Health Language (acquired by Wolters Kluwer), Medingo (acquired by Roche), and U-Systems (acquired by GE Healthcare).
Mr. Davis was a founder of Cambridge Heart, Inc., a cardiology diagnostics company, and Voxware, Inc., an early entrant in the Voice over IP market. Both companies achieved IPOs through leading underwriters within three years of their founding. He has served on numerous private and public company boards. In addition to EndoGastric Solutions, he currently serves on the board of directors of Biostorage Technologies, MID Surgical, and Tactile Medical, all Radius portfolio companies. He also serves on the Board of Directors of HealthCorps, a charitable organization dedicated to educating and empowering youth to take charge of their health.
Arda M. Minocherhomjee, PhD, Partner, Chicago Growth Partners
Dr. Minocherhomjee is a founding Partner of Chicago Growth Partners (CGP). Prior to founding CGP, he was a Managing Director at William Blair Capital Partners (WBCP). He is currently a Managing Director and member of the Board of Managers of WBCP VI and VII and is a Principal Senior Healthcare Analyst at William Blair & Company.
As head of the firm’s Healthcare Research Group, Dr. Minocherhomjee covered several sectors, including drugs/drug delivery, medical devices, and selected healthcare services. He was a Wall Street Journal “All-Star Analyst” in both the medical device and pharmaceutical sectors. In addition to EndoGastric Solutions, select current and past directorships include Atherogenics, CryoCor, DJ Pharma, Favrille, Genoptix, Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals, NuVasive, PharmaResearch Corporation, POINT Biomedical, Proteome, and TargeGen.
Kunal Paymaster, Principal, SightLine Partners
Mr. Paymaster has 12 years of healthcare experience. He joined SightLine in 2012 and has been a core part of the investment team, serving as an advisor or board observer at several portfolio companies. Prior to joining SightLine, Kunal spent seven years in various operating roles at Boston Scientific’s Cardiac Rhythm Management business unit.
Alejandro Sanchez, Managing Director, Canepa Healthcare
Alejandro Sanchez is a managing director at Canepa Healthcare. Prior to joining Canepa Healthcare, he was a co-founder and partner of Hermes Growth Partners, where he launched its Telecom, Media, and Technology Fund. Alejandro is a former partner at McKinsey and Company, where he worked in the telecom, media, and technology sectors across a diverse set of geographies, including Venezuela, Chile, Brazil, Russia, Poland, and the United States.
He serves on the Boards of Directors of bioTheranostics, Tryton Medical, Virgin Mobile Latin America, WAU and NoShame. Alejandro is a systems engineer with an MS in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University.