Investors & Board

INVESTORS & BOARD

our investors

our board

Eric Bell

Board Observer

Eric is Managing Director of SpringRock Ventures. Before co-founding SpringRock, Eric headed the health care investment effort for the Invention Development Fund at Intellectual Ventures (IV). Prior to IV, Eric had spent most of his career in venture capital; he was an investment professional responsible for early and mid-stage health care investments at Vulcan Capital and at Tredegar Investments. Eric has also been Director of Business Development with Corixa Corporation, a biotechnology company in Seattle, WA. Prior to business school, Eric had worked for a start-up medical device company developing a home hemodialysis machine, Aksys, Ltd. (AKSY). Eric has an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute..

Lucas Nivon

Chief Executive Officer & Board Member

Lucas is trained in computational biophysics and protein engineering. Prior to Cyrus he was a Translational Investigator & Senior Fellow at the Baker lab at UW, developing small-molecule binding proteins and protein design algorithms. Lucas is the founder of PedalAnywhere, an online-only bicycle rental company. Lucas’ scientific work includes a patented computationally designed enzyme, an RNA-dynamics-modeling software toolkit (built during his Ph.D. with Eugene Shakhnovich and Xiaowei Zhuang at Harvard), and algorithm optimization for automation of computational protein design. Harvard A.B., Biochemical Sciences (summa cum laude and Goldwater Scholar) and Ph.D., Biophysics; Hertz Fellow.

Geeta Vemuri

Board Observer

Dr. Geeta Vemuri is Founder and Managing Partner at Agent Capital. Geeta leads and oversees all Agent Capital activities, including portfolio management, new investments and operation activities. Prior to Agent Capital, Dr. Vemuri was the Managing Partner of Baxter Ventures and the Managing Partner of Baxalta Ventures, where she led each corporate venture capital arm with more than $300M under management. Prior to Baxter, Dr. Vemuri was a Partner at Quaker Partners where she focused on biotech and healthcare investments. Dr. Vemuri has served on the board of a variety of companies, including Cempra (until its IPO and Dr. Vemuri’s departure in 2011), Covagen (acq. by J&J), Gadeta (acq. by Gilead), Naurex (acq. by Allergan), Ocular Therapeutix, Protez Pharmaceuticals (acq. by Novartis), Syntimmune (acq. by Alexion), and True North Therapeutics (acq. by Bioverativ/Sanofi), among others. Dr. Vemuri received a PhD in biochemistry from Indian Institute of Sciences and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Yifan Song

Chief Science Officer & Board Member

Yifan has been at the forefront of computational protein modeling and biophysics in a variety of fields. Yifan was the lead developer on core Rosetta protein modeling functionality, and the project manager at CCNY for an electrostatics calculation software package, MCCE. He pioneered a number of technical refinements in protein structure energy evaluation currently used in Rosetta. Yifan is a leader in computational protein modeling, with experience ranging from ab initio protein structure prediction to crystallography to protein-protein interaction design and over 20 scientific publications in leading journals. He is a former Translational Investigator & Research Scientist at the Baker lab at the University of Washington. Yifan completed a B.S. in Physics at Fudan University and earned his Ph.D. in Physics at CCNY.

Gus Tai

Board Member

Gus is a general partner at Trinity Ventures, where he specializes in funding early-stage companies and supporting entrepreneurs at the time of company formation. A Forbes Midas List recipient, Gus has backed a number of pioneering companies including Blue Nile (IPO), Bulletproof Coffee, Callisto Media, Markforged, 10% Happier, MaxPoint (IPO), Photobucket (acquired by Fox Interactive Media), Trion Worlds, Truaxis (acquired by MasterCard) and Zulily (IPO). Gus holds a BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and a MS and MBA from MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Sloan School of Management, respectively..

Chad Waite

Board Member

Chad is a Managing Director at OVP Venture Partners, where he has raised seven funds, with $750M currently under management. Chad has 28 years of experience investing across sectors as diverse as IT, clean tech, and digital biology. The firm has invested in over 130 companies, with 53 exits, including 23 IPOs. Notable successes include WatchGuard, Seattle Genetics, and Rosetta Inpharmatics.
Chad‘s additional investments include Accelerator, Adapx, Airgo Networks, Boston Beer, CellPro, Complete Genomics, Corixa, Loudeye Technologies, NanoString, SignalSoft, Verdezyne, Verity. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Adapx, NanoString, NexGenia, Talyst and Verdezyne. Prior to joining OVP in 1987, Chad was a General Partner at Hambrecht & Quist Venture Partners where he focused on investments in IT and life sciences. Prior to H&Q, he was in marketing and sales management at Cobe Laboratories, Inc. in its cardiovascular medical products division. Chad is a member of the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) BSIF Advisory Board and a member of the University of Washington’s Technology Transfer Advisory Board.