Alex Andrianopoulos leads the team of investment analysts at Kairos that conducts research and due diligence on all the companies we consider to invest in, either through incubation or Series-A funds. Alex joined Kairos with 20+ years of experience at high-tech companies specializing in enterprise software, ranging in size from startups with a handful of employees to behemoths with tens of thousands of employees. In these companies, Alex led global teams of dozens of employees responsible for product strategy, intellectual property protection, engineering, professional services, sales, marketing, and business development, and actively participated in the efforts to close, and successfully closed, multiple rounds of financing by venture capital firms as well as the public markets. Alex has a degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Computer Engineering and an MBA in Finance and Marketing.
Kara Bortone is head of JLABS in San Diego, one of Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s incubators. Kara is responsible for external engagement, innovation sourcing, company onboarding, portfolio management, operational excellence, educational programming and P&L. She catalyzes and supports the translation of science and technology into valuable solutions for patients and consumers across the pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer healthcare sectors. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Texas.
Christie Canaria is a Program Director in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Development Center at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She also manages the I-Corps at NIH program for the NIH and CDC. Christie began science policy work in Washington, DC in 2013 as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow. Previously, she managed an optical microscopy facility at DOE Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as an imaging expert and neurobiologist; she also served as a coordinator and imaging expert at the Caltech Biological Imaging Center where she developed multi-dimensional and time-lapse confocal imaging techniques. Prior to these roles, she was a bench researcher at Illumina, Inc. through its early start-up and IPO stages. Christie earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego.
Asheem Chandna is a trusted venture capital partner, who is the first call for ambitious engineers and entrepreneurs who want to build new businesses. He has helped found and start multiple companies and currently invests in enterprise companies at all stages – initiate, seed, early-stage and growth. He is an experienced company board member having served on 20 technology company boards, including three public companies (Palo Alto Networks, Imperva, Sourcefire), and multiple that have been acquired in strong M&A outcomes. He has also helped create and grow multiple businesses to market-leading positions – both as a venture capitalist (2003 – present), & previously as a product executive (1988 – 2002). As a company director, he works closely with CEOs, founders, management teams to help create and grow category-leading companies that provide customers with differentiated capabilities and superior business value. He helps companies in multiple areas including strategy, recruiting, customer acquisition, business development, marketing, operational excellence, company financings and exits.
Kevin Crosby is empowering the future of voice, AI, and ambient compute startups by working on the Alexa Fund at Amazon. He has leadership experience across technical product/program management and software engineering teams, corporate strategy and planning, marketing/brand strategy, finance, bizdev/biz operations, supply chain and manufacturing. His domain knowledge compises mobile, social, SaaS, SDK/API platforms, NLU, ML, building products, consumer electronics, and retail/ecommerce. Kevin holds a bachelors degree in economics and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
Kevin DeBré is the chair of the Stubbs Alderton & Markiles, LLP’s Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions Practice Group. Kevin advises entrepreneurs and companies that use intellectual property to build their businesses. Kevin has particular expertise in structuring and negotiating technology commercialization and patent licenses, strategic alliances, research and development collaborations, trademark licensing and brand merchandising agreements and manufacturing, distribution and marketing arrangements. He also counsels clients on compliance with data security and privacy laws and regulations.
André Doumitt is the Director of Innovation Development at The Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research and development center based in El Segundo, California. Previously he served as President and founder of Digital AdopXion LLC, a consulting company set up to help transition R&D technology in the airborne and space-based data collection and processing domains. Mr. Doumitt served as President and CEO of Geosemble Technologies, an In-Q-Tel funded start-up founded as a spin-out of USC’s computer science department. Mr. Doumitt holds dual BA degrees from the University of California and an MBA from the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird).
Rayfe Gaspar-Asaoka is a Principal at Canaan focusing on deep tech investments including AI / ML, IoT, Space and Robotics, as well as enterprise and infrastructure software. Rayfe previously worked as a Senior Associate on Cloud and IoT projects at Keystone Strategy. Prior to that, he was a Machine Learning engineer for Wolverine Trading and ASIC designer at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. Rayfe earned a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.
David Henshall is the Senior Advisor for Commercial Strategy at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He is setting up the Microsystems Technology Office’s Transition Accelerator, helping DARPA funded projects transition their technology from the lab to impact. Prior to joining DAPRA, David was the Deputy Director at ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy) where he lead a team of experts developing business models for early-stage energy technologies. David earned a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree in Ceramic Sciences and Engineering from Alfred University.
Ben Johnson is CTO and co-founder of Obsidian Security, an identity-centric security company. Prior to founding Obsidian, he co-founded Carbon Black and most recently served as the company’s Chief Security Strategist. As the company’s original CTO, he led efforts to create the powerful capabilities that helped define the next-generation endpoint security space. Prior to Carbon Black, Ben was an NSA computer scientist and later worked as a cyber engineer in an advanced intrusion operations division for the intelligence community. Ben is active in the cybersecurity community, where he is a technical advisor to the US FISA Court and sits on boards of multiple security startups. Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Newport Beach, CA with his wife and three sons.
Steven Konsek joined the National Science Foundation in September 2012 as a Program Director in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Prior to joining the NSF he was the Chief Technology Officer at Illumitex, a venture-backed company developing light emitting diode chips, packages and fixtures for general illumination. He previously served as Chief of Technical Staff at Glo, recognized as one of Europe’s top LED startups. Prior to Glo Steven was the Director of Device R&D at Nantero, a memory startup. Throughout his career Steven has developed innovative, game-changing technologies across a range of semiconductor applications. He has a PhD in Physics from the University of Washington and a BS in Mathematics from Purdue University. He holds numerous patents and publications in LEDs, memory, process integration and nanoscale devices. At the National Science Foundation he serves as a program director in the I-Corps and SBIR programs.
Ron Miller is the chairman and cofounder of StartEngine. As a serial start-up entrepreneur, Ron advocated for SEC rule making to give life to the JOBS Act, raise the initial capital and built a leadership team to drive the sales and market plan to help StartEngine establish a leadership place in the market. Prior to StartEngine, Ron founded, built and sold five companies through management buyouts, private equity, private investors, and public markets. He was also nominated as a four-time Inc. 500/5000 award recipient and was Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the year award finalist. Ron is a facilitator for the Entrepreneurial Leadership Development Program at UCLA Anderson School of Business. Ron also serves as a board member to YPO Angeleno, USC Grief School of Entrepreneurship, West Coast Care and several for profit corporations. Ron is a member of the CNBC-YPO Chief Executive Network and the LA Mayor’s Council on Tech and Innovation.
Puneet Sharma is Head, Networked Systems Group and a Distinguished Technologist at Hewlett Packard Labs where he leads research on Edge2Cloud Infrastructure, IoT, Virtualization, Cloud Networks and applied machine learning. Prior to joining HP Labs, he received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California and a B.Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He has delivered Keynotes and speeches at various forums such as NFV World Congress 2016 and IEEE 5G Startup Forum 2018. Puneet has published close to 100 research articles in various prestigious networking conferences and journals. His work on Mobile Collaborative Communities was featured in the New Scientist Magazine. He has 30+ US granted patents. Puneet was named Fellow of IEEE in 2014 for contributions to the design of scalable networking, software defined networks and energy efficiency in data centers. He is also a Distinguished Member of ACM.
Hans Tai is the President of the Industrial Technology Investment Corporation. Even before age 30, Hans was already a venture investor in Silicon Valley and went on to achieve several successful exits including Netscreen (acquired by Juniper Networks for US$4 billion in 2004), Abovenet, Capella Microsystems, Youyoucun, Paypal, Mobilink, ViewQuest, Youngtek, Orise, AIT, Focus.com, Provilla, GigaDevice, Chirp, Protego, etc. Hans led corporate venture for Sunplus Technology and completed several major deals including core IP acquisition from Oak Technology and a joint venture with Philips. Hans also co-founded a mobile service company, UUCUN (youyoucun), in 2009, and helped the company grew from 0 to 100M users in 5 years; Baidu acquired the company in 2013. His expertise covers a broad range of tech spaces and especially semiconductors, software, and network solutions.
Ariana Thacker is an Associate at Rhapsody Venture Partners. She graduated Magna Cum Laude in Chemical Engineering from UCLA. Ariana has multi-industry technical and business development experience spanning from early-stage start-ups to Fortune 50 companies. Ariana is a patented inventor that has worked on the founding teams of academic spin-outs focused on energy storage solutions, and was the founder of an award-winning philanthropic venture that received congressional recognition. She has deep ties to founders in both the Boston and Los Angeles start-up ecosystems.
Colin Wylie is the Startup Acceleration Manager at Starburst Aerospace Accelerator. He works with the best aerospace startups to secure pilot programs and initial customers, help raise funds, and connect them to industry veterans for mentorship. He advises startups on navigating the aerospace industry’s unique set of challenges with regards to risk mitigation, strategic placement, and paths to revenue. Colin earned an aerospace engineering degree from the University of Southern California and worked for the United States Air Force before moving to the entrepreneurial sector. After years of working on the startup side as project leads and chief engineer for various aviation startups, he joined Starburst to run the US accelerator program with the mission to help the aerospace innovation industry thrive.
Jeff Yu is Corporate Director of Technology, reporting to the Corporate Vice President and Chief Strategy & Technology Officer of Northrop Grumman, a leading global provider of security systems and solutions. Jeff is responsible for the advancing the company’s global technology strategy, managing the research and development investment portfolio, developing technology partnerships, and fostering innovation across the enterprise. At Northrop Grumman, he has served as director of technology and engineering for multiple national and civil security businesses, covering technologies including artificial intelligence, data analytics, large-scale information management, cybersecurity, real-time signal processing, and field-deployable systems. He was a founding advisory board member of the Cync early-stage cyber incubator program, a partnership between Northrop Grumman and the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Jeff earned a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Princeton University and a master’s degree and degree of engineer, both in electrical engineering, from Stanford University.