Hirak Parikh

Principal, Venture Investments

2022 - Current

I initiate and manage our equity investment portfolio in medical devices and digital health across North America and support other investments made by JJDC in other verticals. In addition, I collaborate with various external innovation initiatives across North America through the Boston Innovation Center.

Associate, Venture Investments

2021 - 2022

Fund Manager for Michigan Biomedical Venture Fund (MBVF)

2016 - 2021

Fund Manager since inception for the Michigan Biomedical Venture Fund (formerly the Monroe-Brown Seed Fund). Have made 12 investments (1 exit to nVidia) across the life-sciences: therapeutics, devices, diagnostics, and health IT/digital technologies. Extensive experience in deal sourcing, conducting due diligence, making investment decisions, portfolio construction and management, and helping raise syndicate capital. All 12 companies have raised > $60M in follow-on capital (26x leverage) and are tracking well (MOIC 1.6).Strong network with life-science VCs and strategic. Board member for Arborsense. Board observer for Mountain Pass, Courage Therapeutics, and Ripple Science. Significant fundraising experience and interaction with alumni, LPs and major donors to the University MBVF is an evergreen fund that provides necessary early-stage capital to nascent U-M biomedical start-up companies to successfully commercialize their research in the most impactful way possible. He serves as a mentor to the funded companies and supports other commercialization efforts and programs at the University. This fund bridges the gap between existing University grant programs and venture capital.

Venture Partner

2019 - 2020

Augment Ventures invests in technology companies with transformational products and services for the global markets in software, smart hardware, and industrial tech. The Fund is looking to invest in motivated teams committed to impacting global markets and serve ever-emerging energy and productivity requirements. Specialties: Software, Smart Hardware, Industrial Tech, and Physical Innovation

Principal Scientist

2013 - 2018

Principal Scientist at The Neuromarketing Labs Together with an outstanding team of scientists, we apply the latest behavioral, neuroscientific, and neuroeconomic findings to the development of proprietary algorithms which allow The Neuromarketing Labs to predict customers’ behavior in order to help clients to optimize their pricing and marketing material. The Neuromarketing Labs: In 2011, in collaboration with an outstanding research group at the University of Tuebingen, we decided to found The Neuromarketing Labs. Our goal was to develop new market research methods based on the latest and most advanced insights and technologies from brain research. After extensive preparatory research, at present, we support our clients’ marketing strategy providing neuroscientific research at the highest standards. Our new and innovative approaches which analyze how the brain reacts to marketing stimuli enable companies to gain a thorough understanding of their customers. In the last 2 years, a number of academic publications from renowned universities have demonstrated that brain scans are able to predict real-world behavior in real markets above and beyond any other research method available. The expertise of our team is to streamline such research in order to make it commercially applicable. At The Neuromarketing Labs we benchmark our work to the current gold standards.

Sr. Research Scientist

2009 - 2013

Product Technology Development Group Leader

Lecturer

2010 - 2010

Taught a graduate-level special topics course in neural engineering. Also covered basic science and applications from the fields of neurology, neurosurgery, and neuroscience. The course covers primary principles, mechanisms and technologies underlying neural engineering in more detail, including neural recording, stimulation, neuromodulation, and neurochemical sensing, neural interfaces, from history, developments, to recent advances and outlook over the next 10-15 years.

Post Doctoral Fellow

2009 - 2010

Graduate Student Research Assistant

2003 - 2009

Student

2005 - 2006

Intern

2004 - 2004