Investing.
Humble beginnings..
In 2004, stumbled into a meeting of the Notre Dame “Investment Club.” Little did I know that I’d end up managing the entire portfolio, interning at Goldman Sachs and 6 years later, weaseling my way into a global venture capital firm.
Track record.
For nearly 3 years I had the privilege of working at Canaan, a top-quartile VC fund. As an analyst on the healthcare team, I helped screen nearly 1,000 opportunities a year. Supporting senior staff in two geographies provided the opportunity to work on every single deal from first-pitch to ongoing support once the companies joined our portfolio of nearly three dozen businesses.
New deals.
During my tenure, Canaan wrote checks into 10 new companies in rounds totaling $175M. Of those, 7 were biopharma companies. The others were devices, diagnostics or consumer products. We were the lead investor in half of these deals and in a couple of cases, the companies were incubation projects that I was closely involved with.
Exits.
During what was a dismal time for institutional limited partner commitments to healthcare funds, the exit environment fared well. The fund realized greater than $1B of liquidity events including 2 IPO’s, and 3 M&A deals. One remarkable transaction was the $750M acquisition of Advanced Biohealing, one of the largest ever exits for a VC-backed medical device company.
Operating assets.
Qualitative.
My CliftonStrengths are: Strategic, Ideation, Input, Intellection, and Competition. I’m highly talented at pattern matching, connecting disparate ideas, recalling nascent facts, accumulating bits of knowledge, engaging in smart discussions, and striving to win.
I’m an independent thinker with a perpetual hunger to learn more about diverse topics. I’m usually a few steps ahead. I ask high-quality questions.
Quantitative.
I have a natural ease with numbers. Whether it’s a pre-clinical R&D budget, a management incentive plan or a multi-year sales projection, I’m experienced in building and analyzing of all sorts of financial models as part of a diligence work up.
I’ve also been known to spot obscure errors in M&A liquidation models and have superhuman cap table calculation capabilities.
Soft Skills.
Undercover tenacity has always been my style. I learn fast and give direct feedback. I build rapport rapidly. People are usually quick to grow comfortable revealing significant insights to me.
I’ve observed on private company boards, served as an advisor to several startups, and been on a “first call” basis with other founders in need of advice.
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
Closing Bell at NASDAQ MarketSite, July 2011