INVESTMENT TEAM
Rick Blume, Managing Director (Emeritus)
Rick Blume has been financing companies in healthcare for over three decades. His early investment banking career involved financing and banking relationships with hospitals, payers, physicians, and new biotech companies. The excitement he saw at Genentech, in its early years, led him to transition into venture capital in the mid 1980's. Rick co-founded CB Health Ventures in 1998.
In each of his five prior venture funds, Rick has followed the same successful strategy: invest broadly in healthcare across various sectors and stages and focus on businesses that lower costs and improve outcomes. By having savvy healthcare providers as limited partners and advisers, Rick has built up an extraordinary network to help with due diligence and market acceptance issues.
Rick has served as a director or active investor in many companies including Cytyc (acquired by Hologic - HOLX), AbT (now OSI - OSIP), Somatogen (acquired by Baxter - BAX), EdenTec (acquired by Nellcor), Exact Sciences (EXAS), IPC The Hospitalist Company (IPCM), GeneOhm (acquired by Becton Dickinson - BDX), Saladax Medical, Zonare, US Servis (acquired by McKesson); and the former public health insurance company Washington National. In addition to Excel, Rick has been active in initiating and teaching courses in venture capital and entrepreneurship at both Boston College Carroll School of Management and Simmons College School of Management, and serving on the Boards of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, the National Regenerative Medicine Foundation, and Stanford Associates Board of Governors. Rick did his undergraduate studies at University of the Pacific and Stanford. His MBA is from Stanford University.
Juan Enriquez, Managing Director
Juan Enriquez is a leading authority on the economic impact of life sciences on business and society and is a respected business leader and entrepreneur. Juan has led various Excel investments in companies like ShapeUp/ Virgin Pulse, Activate, Catch, Foodsmart, NeoSensory, Openwater, Xcellerex, SGI-DNA, and Synthetic Genomics.
Prior to Excel, Juan was the founding Director of the Harvard Business School's Life Sciences Project, with many of his innovative thoughts captured in his bestselling book, As The Future Catches You, which provided an accurate blueprint of how a bio-based economy changes industries and corporations. He then co-authored, with Steve Gullans, Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth, which describes a world where humans increasingly shape their environment, themselves, and other species. His most recent book is RIGHT/WRONG: How Technology Transforms Our Ethics
Following HBS, Juan became an active angel investor and co-founded Synthetic Genomics, with Drs. J. Craig Venter and Nobel Prize winner Hamilton Smith to apply synthetic biology to address global energy, medicine, clean water, and food challenges. As a business leader, advisor, and renowned speaker, Juan works directly with the CEOs of a number of Fortune 50 companies, as well as various heads of state, on how to adapt to a world where the dominant language is shifting from the digital towards the language of life. Mr. Enriquez has served on a number of boards including Cabot Corporatin, GBH, Questbridge, The American Academy of Ars and Sciences, the Strategic Council of the National Academy of Sciences, TED Braintrust, The Genetics Advisory Council of Harvard Medical School, and the Advisory boards of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center and Weatherhead Center as well as MIT Press. He graduated from Harvard with a B.A. and an M.B.A., both with honors. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council of Foreign Relations.
Caleb Winder, Managing Director
Caleb brings nearly 25 years of operating, startup, and financing experience across life science and healthcare companies. He plays an instrumental role in sourcing and structuring investments and works closely with portfolio companies to forge strategic partnerships and shape their commercialization and marketing strategies. He currently serves or has served as a Board Director or Observer on behalf of Excel at Aileron, Aventura (sold to Phillips), ClearData, InfoBionic, MedVentive (sold to McKesson), Molecular Templates (IPO), Oculus Health (sold to WellBox), Qstream, ShapeUp (sold to Virgin Pulse), and WellDoc.
Before joining Excel, Caleb was a Principal at Biotechonomy Ventures, where he financed and managed several entrepreneurial ventures, including Viridos (formerly Synthetic Genomics), where he also served as Director of Finance, as well as BioTrove (sold to Life Technologies), Biocius (sold to Agilent Technologies), and Xcellerex (Board of Directors (sold to GE). Earlier in his career, he was an award-winning sales and marketing executive at medical equipment and diagnostics companies.
Caleb earned his M.B.A., magna cum laude, from Babson College, where he was a Babson Fellow in the Center for Technology Enterprise, and holds a B.A. in Biology with a minor in Economics from Colby College. He also serves as Managing Director of the MemorialCare Innovation Fund.
Steve Gullans, PhD, Co-Founder and Special Advisor
Steve Gullans brings a rare combination of deep scientific expertise and hands-on entrepreneurial and investment experience to Excel Venture Management, which he co-founded in 2008 and served as a Managing Director for 10 years. At Excel, Steve is focused on life science technology companies with a particular interest in disruptive platforms that can impact multiple industries, spanning therapeutics, diagnostics, and digital health.
Prior to Excel spent nearly two decades as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he was Associate Professor of Medicine and Neuroscience and Director of the BWH Biotechnology Center. He published more than 130 scientific papers in leading journals including Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine, was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Heart Association, and holds six patents. After Harvard, Steve served as Chief Scientific Officer of U.S. Genomics and co-founded and served as CEO of RxGen, Inc.
At Excel, Steve has served as a Board Director across more than a dozen private and public companies, with numerous successful exits including Tetraphase Therapeutics (NASDAQ IPO 2013), BioTrove (acquired by Life Technologies), Biocius (acquired by Agilent), Cleveland HeartLab (acquired by Quest Diagnostics), N-of-One (acquired by Qiagen), and Molecular Templates (NASDAQ IPO 2017). He remains a founding investor and Board Director at Orionis Biosciences.
Following his time as a Managing Director at Excel, Steve served as President and CEO of Gemphire Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GEMP), a clinical-stage cardiovascular biotech, where he led two Phase 2 programs and a $25M public offering before overseeing the company's merger with NeuroBo Therapeutics in 2019. More recently, he co-founded Thynk, Inc., a digital health company applying brain-computer interface technology to improve focus and impulse control in children and adults.
Steve is also a widely recognized author and speaker. He co-authored Evolving Ourselves with Juan Enriquez, and has spoken at TED, TEDMED, TEDx, and the OECD, among many other venues worldwide. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University and Post-doctoral training at Yale School of Medicine.
OPERATIONS
Jeanne Henry, CFO
Jeanne joined the Excel team in 2009 and brings more than 18 years of venture capital financial management and reporting experience to the team. Previously, Jeanne was CFO with Atlas Venture, an international venture firm. Earlier she was an Audit Manager with Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers). Jeanne holds a B.A. from the University of New Hampshire, an MBA from the University of Illinois, Chicago and is a Certified Public Accountant. She has been a member of the AICPA, the MA. Society of CPA's, and a former Board member of the Private Equity CFO Association.
Tricia Brock, Vice President of Finance and Administration
Tricia Brock is the Vice President of Finance and Administration for Excel Venture Management bringing with her 27 years of private equity experience. In this capacity, she oversees the operational, financial, and administrative aspects of the firm including financial reporting, investor relations, process improvement, and human resources. Prior to Excel Venture, Tricia was Director of Finance and Administration for CB Health Ventures (CBHV) where she worked in a similar capacity managing venture funds with $150 million of capital under management. Prior to CBHV, she was a Manager in the Global Income Unit at State Street Corporation where she managed daily operations and client service for clients in the Asia Pacific region. Tricia is a member of several industry organizations such as the NVCA CFO Taskforce, Women in Alternative Assets (WIAA), and served on the Board of the Financial Executives Alliance (FEA).
Govinda Sumberg, Executive Coordinator
Govinda brings more than 25 years of varied and extensive experience in Financial Services, both buy and sell side. Prior to joining Excel, Govinda was the Regional Business Administrator for Credit Suisse Private Banking, N.A. Her B.A. in Political Science is from the University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt.