Manish Kothari
Founding Partner, First Spark Ventures; Past President, SRI International
Manish Kothari
Founding Partner, First Spark Ventures; Past President, SRI International
United States
Overview
Work Experience
Managing Director & Founder
2022 - 2022
President, SRI
2018 - 2022
Corporate officer with diverse responsibilities related to running SRI including its venture arm (home of Nuance, Intuitive Surgical, Siri, Verb Surgical, etc.) SRI Ventures of note over last ~10 years, including exits AI and Analytics and Autonomy LatentAI: Edge AI (Led by Steve Jurvetson (Tesla, SpaceX) Oto: Speech (acquired by Unity) Scotty Robotics: Autonomous driving (acq by Doordash) Calabrio: Speech - exited > valued > $1B Robotics Abundant Robotics Seismic Space: LeoLabs (Series B led by Insight Partners) MedTech Curie DecodedHealth Bioceryx: LisaHealth Microelectronics: Averatek
President, SRI Ventures
2015 - 2022
Lead the team responsible for the creation of over 20 high-value venture opportunities - from concept through market development, team building, technology transition, seed funding, partner and investor identification, and launch. Additionally, act as an advisor to Fortune-500 companies and their senior executives on their acquisition strategy in the areas of digital healthcare, wellness and med-tech. Led Nikon's M&A efforts into the medical area, including sourcing, diligencing and support of acquisition of Optos. Strongly focused on the intersection of AI, robotics and automation. Past or current board member of a number of great startups, including: Superflex, Leolabs, Abundant Robotics, Princeton Identity, Passio, Averatek, Area17.
Director, Ventures & Program Director, Robotics & Health Systems
2012 - 2015
Actively commercializing a number of different products in both the med-tech and robotics space based on SRI proprietary technology. Played a key role in development of Verb Surgical (acq by J&J) Did M&A activities for several companies resulting in acquisitions > $1B
Co-founder, CEO & Board member
2009 - 2012
Innovative award-winning cloud-based SaaS company focused on direct-to-participant clinical trials. First company in the world to have FDA approved electronic informed consent. Successfully raised Series A. First successful FDA approval of direct-to-participant clinical trial (IND). Won multiple large projects with blue chip clients, including Pfizer, Roche, etc. Company successfully sold to Medidata.
CTO + Head of Regulatory & Operations
2007 - 2009
Novel non-screw based posterior stabilization device. Responsible for R&D, Quality, Manufacturing and Clinical Operations. Led successful EU approval of device. Successfully raised Series B with CEO. Actively presented to the FDA.
Global VP, Musculoskeletal Imaging Business Unit
2005 - 2007
General manager for $100M Business Unit. Met all P&L targets. Licensed multiple products from UCSF and introduced new product lines. Actively participated in multiple submissions to the FDA for various blue-chip clients such as Pfizer, Novartis, etc.
Global VP, Sales and Scientific Client Services, Medical Imaging
2001 - 2004
Grew sales from <$5M/year to $50M/year, routinely exceeding targets within 3 years. Helped CEO evaluate multiple acquisition opportunities. Integrated acquired cardiovascular imaging lab into product portfolio
VP Medical Imaging Technology/CTO
1998 - 2001
Managed and grew 30+ technology and software development team. Developed advance image analysis and image transfer systems, including early neural network based systems. Terabyte scale database replications. Emphasized focus on user interaction engineering to optimized assessment accuracy. Represented the imaging assessment technology at the FDA for multiple pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, etc.
Postdoc
1996 - 1998