Series A Judges
Michael Yang, Managing Director, Silicon Valley Office, Comcast Ventures
An operating executive turned venture capitalist, Michael joined Comcast Ventures in 2009. He focuses on consumer Internet applications and services. Previously, Michael was a Vice President/General Manager at Yahoo! in the Media Group as well as the Local Markets & Commerce Division. During his tenure at Yahoo!, he managed Yahoo! Autos, Yahoo! Real Estate and Yahoo! Health; co-led Yahoo! Shopping; and was part of the team that formed Yahoo!’s strategic alliance with the Newspaper Consortium. He’s also worked at Atlas Venture, Zaplet, and was a member of AOL’s Business Affairs team. Michael graduated from Harvard University with an M.B.A. and the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School. In case he is accused of joining any bandwagons, Michael likes to make it clear that he became a Yankees fan as a toddler growing up in New Jersey, a Cowboys fan during elementary school in Texas, and a Red Devils fan during his youth soccer days abroad. His favorite song is “Glory Glory Man United.”
Andy Donner, Partner, Physic Ventures
Andy Donner is a Partner with Physic Ventures. Andy has 15 years of investment and management experience in the information technology, healthcare and consumer product industries. At Physic Ventures, Andy focuses on investments in the Connected Health sector which includes digital media, monitoring solutions, health e-games, technology-enabled health delivery, innovative retail, wellness programs and disease management. Andy is on the boards of Alliance Health Networks and Yummly. He also works closely with portfolio companies GoodGuide, GreenGoose, HealthLoop, Pharmaca, and Revolution Foods. Andy was previously a Senior Associate with Great Spirit Ventures, a venture capital firm which invested in early-stage companies in the health and wellness marketplace. Formerly, Andy spent six years founding, building and managing rapid-growth companies in the high-tech and digital media industries, including atMadison.com, where he served as Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer; Entopia, where he established and directed the product marketing department; and LeapFrog Enterprises, where he developed new business opportunities in the healthcare industry. From 1997 to 1999, Andy was a member of Wasserstein Perella‘s Technology Mergers & Acquisitions Group. Andy graduated cum laude from Duke University’s pre-med program and earned his MBA at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was awarded full-tuition as a Haas Merit Scholarp.
Nina Kjellson, General Partner, Interwest Partners
Nina Kjellson has been part of InterWest’s life sciences team since 2002, focusing primarily on investments in biopharmaceuticals. She is a board member of Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Cebix, CNS Therapeutics, Eiger Biopharmaceuticals, Lycera, PrimeraDx and Trius Therapeutics (TSRX). Kjellson led InterWest’s investment in APT Pharmaceuticals where she is an observer on the board and co-sponsored InterWest’s investments in TESARO and Sera Prognostics where she is also a board observer. She also leads InterWest’s initiative in health care IT and is a director of the Consumer Medicine Summit, a forum to address the convergence of health care and consumer innovation. Prior to joining InterWest, Kjellson was an investment manager at Bay City Capital, a life sciences merchant bank, and a research associate at Oracle Partners, a healthcare-focused hedge fund. Kjellson began her career conducting health policy and survey research with the Kaiser Family Foundation. Kjellson received a B.A. in human biology from Stanford University. Previous Representative Investments Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, acquired by Galenica and NovaCardia, acquired by Merck (MRK).
Lisa Suennen, Co-Founder and Managing Member, Psilos
Lisa Suennen is a co-founder and Managing Member of Psilos Group, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm with over $577 million under management and active investments in healthcare information technology portfolio companies including Click4Care, HealthEdge Software, PatientSafe Solutions and OneShield. Lisa has headed Psilos’ West Coast office since the firm’s founding in 1998 and focuses on the medical device, healthcare information technology and healthcare services sectors. She serves as a Director on the Board of several Psilos portfolio companies, including AngioScore, PatientSafe Solutions, OmniGuide and VeraLight. Lisa also writes a widely read blog on healthcare and healthcare investing at www.venturevalkyrie.com.Prior to Psilos, Lisa was at Merit Behavioral Care (formerly American Biodyne, Inc), where she held various senior executive roles including Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Senior Vice President/General Manager of the Public Sector Division (a $300 million business unit) and Senior Vice President of Pacific Region Operations. Lisa currently serves on the Qualcomm Life Advisory Board, as Vice Chair of Board of the U.C. Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and teaches graduate courses on healthcare and venture capital in the U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business.
Martin R. Felsenthal, Partner, HLM Venture Partners
Marty has spent his career working with emerging growth health care services and health care information technology companies, initially as an investment banker at Alex. Brown & Sons, where he worked closely with Ed Cahill and Russ Ray and, since 1997, as a venture investor focused on health care services and health care information technology companies. He is currently a director of Aperio, CombiMatrix (NASDAQ: CMBX), Teladoc and Vericare. As an investor, Marty has recruited more than 25 executives to the portfolio companies with whom he worked. In addition to his responsibilities at HLM, Marty also serves on the Board of the Northern California Chapter of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. He received a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Rebecca Lynn, Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures
Rebecca is a partner at Morgenthaler Ventures where she focuses on early-stage investments in health IT, mobile, Internet services and financial services. She serves on the boards of Lending Club, Socrata, and Pageonce. She also help source the investment in Practice Fusion. Rebecca began her career at Procter and Gamble and focused on international new product market entry. She then joined NextCard where she served as the vice president of marketing, managing one of the top-five largest online marketing efforts at the time. Rebecca passed the California State Bar and has a focus on intellectual property litigation and corporate law. Rebecca is an inventor on several issued patents. She was also published in the Berkeley Law and Technology Journal.
Seed Round Judges
Bob Kocher, M.D. Partner, Venrock
Bob Kocher is a partner at Venrock and focuses on healthcare IT and services investments. He currently serves on the board of Castlight and the advisory boards of Harvard Medical School Health Care Policy Department, USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, National Institute of Healthcare Management, and ChildObesity180. He is also a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution Engleberg Center for Health Reform and Co-Chair of the Health Data initiative, a joint effort of HHS and the Institute of Medicine, to release healthcare data to spur private sector innovation to improve healthcare cost and quality, and the board of the Hope Street Group. Prior to Venrock, Bob served in the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Healthcare and Economic Policy and a member of the National Economic Council. In the Obama Administration, Bob was one of the shapers of the Affordable Care Act and Health IT policies focusing on cost, quality, and delivery system reform. He was one of the leaders of the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” childhood obesity initiative, led the formation of the Partnership for a Healthier America and served on the Federal Advisory Panel charged with developing a national obesity strategy. Prior to the White House, he was a Partner at McKinsey & Company where he led McKinsey Global Institute’s healthcare economics work and Center for U.S. Health Reform as well as worked with the various constituencies in the healthcare ecosystem to improve health policy, productivity, clinical outcomes, and patient experience. Bob received undergraduate degrees from the University of Washington and a medical degree from George Washington University. He completed a research fellowship with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health, and went on to complete his internal medicine residency training at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Harvard Medical School.
Margaret Laws, Director, Innovations for Underserved Program, California Healthcare Foundation
Margaret Laws is director of the foundation’s Innovations for the Underserved program, which focuses on reducing barriers to efficient, affordable health care for the underserved by encouraging, testing, and promoting lower-cost models of care. In this role she oversees the foundation’s work toward this goal as well as the foundation’s program-related investing initiative. Prior to joining CHCF, Laws was on the staff of the California Managed Care Improvement Task Force. Before that, she was a senior consultant and manager with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), where she worked in the government and health care strategy practices with clients including state health and human service agencies, and payer and provider organizations.
Laws also has worked as a consultant with the Francois Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, conducting research on trends in international development funding for HIV/AIDS; for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, providing technical assistance in program development and operations for nonprofits in developing countries; as a consultant for the World Health Organization’s Global Programme on AIDS; and as a caseworker and analyst for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare. She serves on the advisory board of the Health Initiative of the Americas. Laws received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Princeton University and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Anne DeGheest, Managing Director & Founder, Health Tech Capital
Anne has 25 years of investing experience with MedStars Ventures Partners, specializing in early-stage start-ups in healthcare. In 2010, she founded HealthTech Capital, a group of private investors dedicated to funding and mentoring new “HealthTech” start-ups at the intersection of healthcare and the computer/consumer electronic world. The life science companies for which Anne has been a founder or an early advisor have generated over $6 billion in market capitalization and have raised over $500 million in venture capital. Anne earned an MS from Brussels and an MBA from Harvard.
Jack J. Young, Managing Director, Qualcomm Life Fund, Qualcomm Ventures
Jack heads up the $100M Qualcomm Life Fund (QLF) at Qualcomm Ventures. His investment interest is focused on the emerging wireless and connected health space including wellness and fitness, chronic disease care, remote diagnosis and monitoring, healing and aging in place, health informatics, etc. Jack currently serves as a board observer at QLF portfolio companies including Airstrip, AliveCor and Telcare. In addition, he serves as a board observer at PixSense, Jana, uCIRRUS, Validity and Visage Mobile. Jack is a frequently sought after speaker on the wireless health venture investment subject. Prior to Qualcomm Ventures, Jack was Executive Vice President and US Country Manager at ZTE Corporation (SEHK: 0763), the world’s fifth-largest telecoms equipment maker headquartered in Shenzhen, China, where he helped establish the company’s US market presence. He was a sales and marketing executive at Nokia following the acquisition of silicon-valley based startup Amber Networks for $421M where he was founding AVP of marketing. Early in his career, he held marketing and business development positions at 3Com, GDC, and Nortel. Jack earned a MSEE from University of Calgary and a MBA from McGill University.
Tom Rodgers, Partner, Cambia Health
Tom is now at Cambia Health, a nonprofit total health solutions company dedicated to transforming the way people experience the health care system. Associated with The Regence Group, Cambia’s portfolio of companies spans health care information technology and software development; retail health care; health insurance plans that carry the Blue Cross and Blue Shield brands; pharmacy benefit management; life, disability, dental, vision and other lines of protection. Before joining Cambia, Tom lead ATV’s efforts in Healthcare technology. In that capacity, he represented ATV on the boards of several portfolio companies including Aperio, Valeritas, PolyRemedy, Gynesonics, and Zeltiq Aesthetics. He also previously led the investment in Helixis which was acquired by Illumina (ILMN). Prior to joining ATV, Tom had significant operating experience in the healthcare industry including various strategy, business development, sales, and marketing roles at leading technology companies. Most recently he served as VP of corporate strategy and business development at McKesson Corporation, one of the primary players in the healthcare IT and services industry. Prior to McKesson, he was one of the early team members and managed sales and healthcare strategy for FitLinxx, a venture-backed startup that pioneered the fitness and activity monitoring market including the technology behind the Nike+ system. Before that Tom was a Product Manager at Genentech and was responsible for the successful Nutropin™, Nutropin AQ™ and Pulmozyme™ franchises and he started his career as a consultant with The Wilkerson Group. Tom holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School, a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and was an All American rugby player. He also sheepishly admits he was once the New Hampshire State high school math champion.
JC Simbana, Director, Accelerator Program, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)
JC Simbana is a Director in the SVB Accelerator program. The SVB Accelerator program provides banking services to early-stage startups, organizes events to bring startups and VCs together, and assist startups with their fundraising process. For the past 11 years, Simbana has worked as a financier, mentor and connector to life science and healthcare entrepreneurs in the Bay Area. He is also on the board of Life Science Angels, and is a general advisor to entrepreneurs in the Thiel Fellowship.
Judges – Pre-Selection Round
Christina LaMontagne, Principal, Physic Ventures
Christina LaMontagne is a Principal at Physic Ventures and works across the firm’s interests in personal and planetary health. She is currently focused on the areas of women’s health, technology for the aging, and healthy food. She is also interested in online businesses promoting environmental sustainability. Christina’s professional experience spans marketing, strategy, operations and public policy. Prior to joining Physic Ventures, Christina worked in consumer marketing at Pfizer. In that capacity, she developed direct-to-consumer strategies across media categories for a $700M brand. She also led business development initiatives, identifying target clients for an online disease support program. Previously, Christina spent several years as a consultant to multi-national healthcare, consumer, and IT corporations both in the U.S. and in China. While at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman), Christina helped clients structure M&A deals and redesign manufacturing and supply chain systems. Christina began her career addressing infectious disease in China. As a Fulbright Scholar, she spent three years working across the public and private health care systems in China. She was instrumental in building the Chinese government’s HIV/AIDS treatment program for southwest China. She speaks Mandarin. Christina holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA with high honors from Dartmouth College.
Michelle Snyder, Executive in Residence (EIR), Interwest Partners
Michelle is currently an Executive-in-Residence within the healthcare practice at InterWest Partners. In her role, she has been instrumental in helping to define and refine the HCIT investment thesis as well as evaluating investment opportunities and working with relevant portfolio companies. Prior to InterWest Partners, Michelle was one of the senior executives responsible for building Epocrates into one of the leading mobile health care information technology companies. During her 11 year tenure from launch to IPO, Michelle was responsible for growing the user network to over 40% of U.S. physicians, developing the freemium subscription model and managing the subscriber business unit. Prior to Epocrates, Michelle worked in both New York and San Francisco with The Wilkerson Group, a boutique healthcare strategy consulting firm. At TWG, she advised a wide range of clients including venture firms, pharmaceutical companies, health plans and early stage companies. In addition, she has been involved in both health policy formation and implementation at the national level working at the Lewin Group and the Georgetown Center for Health Policy Studies.
Sanjay Shah, Program Officer, Innovations for the Underserved, California Healthcare Foundation
Sanjay Shah is a Program Officer with the California Healthcare Foundation’s Innovations for the Underserved program, which focuses on reducing barriers to efficient, affordable health care for the underserved by encouraging, testing, and promoting lower-cost models of care. Before joining CHCF, Shah worked as a consultant with The Inovo Group, building innovation capabilities into client organizations and culture. Shah also completed a one-year fellowship at the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center, where he focused on identifying and validating unmet needs in cardiovascular health and total patient care. In addition to creating commercially viable and adopted solutions, he was responsible for business development at the center, and continues to serve as a technical advisor to the center and mentor to future fellowship classes. Sanjay received a bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing and a master’s degree in business administration with a dual focus in finance and marketing from Wayne State University.
Adam Schlifke, M.D., Kaiser Permanente/Health Tech Capital Member/Investor
Adam Schlifke, is a board-certified anesthesiologist, entrepreneur, and health and technology innovator. Adam is currently a practicing anesthesiologist at Kaiser Permanente where he also helped lead regional implementation of the Epic Electronic Medical Record (HealthConnect) for the operating rooms. Adam was the recipient and primary investigator for a Kaiser Division of Research grant to identify process measures using data from the electronic medical record to predict poor surgical outcomes. In addition to the work he does at Kaiser as a clinician and informatics innovator, Adam is an independent consultant for several venture-backed healthcare information technology companies looking toward disruptive change in healthcare. Adam is a mentor for the recently launched healthcare accelerator, Blueprint Health and also a mentor and member of HealthTech Capital, a healthcare technology-focused Angel group based in Los Altos, California. Adam graduated with a BS from the University of Michigan and MD and MBA degrees from UCLA. He completed an intermal medicine internship at CPMC and his anesthesia training at UCSF.
Adam Dole, Business Planning Manager, Mayo Clinic
Adam is a Business Planning Manager at Mayo Clinic. As a member of the business development team, Adam’s role resembles that of an “Entrepreneur In Residence” and is responsible for identifying and incubating opportunities for future Mayo Clinic products, services and businesses. His current focus includes creating new services that extend Mayo Clinic’s reach and impact beyond the hospital walls, with the intention of impacting the lives of broader consumer market. Adam is passionate about designing experiences that facilitate positive lifestyle modification by empowering people to take more ownership over their own health and wellness. Before joining Mayo Clinic, Adam worked for the interactive design and innovation consultancy, Method Inc., where he led the design research practice. Prior to Method, he was a strategist at Jump Associates, a growth strategy firm that helps clients understand where they should go next. Adam began his career as a research associate in the human factors department at NASA where he studied astronaut teams under stressful conditions, in preparation for the long duration spaceflight to Mars. Adam received a BS in Communications from Syracuse University and an MBA in Design Strategy from the newly founded ‘design+business’ program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Adam currently lives in Los Gatos, CA with his wife and enjoys surfing and skydiving in his free time. You can follow @adamdole on twitter, where he regularly discusses topics related to healthcare, behavior change and innovation.
