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
Evan Norton, General Partner, Accelmed
Kunal Paymaster, Principal, SightLine Partners
Alejandro Sanchez, Managing Director, Evidity
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.
Mr. Baldino is also currently the Chairman of the board of ACell, Inc., a regenerative medicine company. The Company focuses on the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of medical devices for wound management and surgical soft tissue repair. He has served on this Company’s board since 2015.
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.
Evan Norton, General Partner, Accelmed
Evan Norton joined Accelmed Partners as a General Partner in 2019. He previously spent a decade with Abbott Labs leading the corporate venture arm, Abbott Ventures. Prior to Abbott, he was a Principal with ONSET Ventures focused on health tech investing. He has a diverse background of operating experience in health tech space including the endoscopy, diabetes and ear, nose and throat markets having worked for Stryker Endoscopy, J&J LifeScan and Acclarent.
In addition to his medical device experience, Evan worked for Compaq Computer Corporation’s Strategic Investments group, the Investment Banking Group at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and in the consulting practice at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Evan holds an MBA degree from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a BBA cum laude in Finance from Texas A&M University. He currently is an adjunct professor at Kellogg (Medical Products Commercialization and Funding) and serves on the Innovation and New Ventures Advisory Board and N.XT Fund investment committee at Northwestern University.
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, Evidity
Alejandro Sanchez co-founded Evidity Health Capital with Paul Enever in 2014. He has nearly a decade of experience in PE/VC investing and has been advising boards and C-suite executives in the technology sector on commercialization, operations, and strategy for nearly 20 years.
Prior to joining Evidity, Alejandro was a co-founder and partner of Hermes Growth Partners, where he launched its Telecom, Media, and Technology Fund. He 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 the United States, Russia, Poland, Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela.
He serves on the Boards of Directors of bioTheranostics, Endogastric Solutions, and Tryton Medical, and he is a board observer at Akili Interactive Labs.
Alejandro is a systems engineer with an MS in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University.
Domain expertise: Leadership and talent, board effectiveness, exit readiness.