SPEAKERS BIO:

Bob Sweeney, Global Health Impact Fund

Bob has over 35 years of experience building and operating technology companies as a CEO, senior manager, partner and board member. He has led and invested in numerous early-stage companies individually or as a member of an investment group. Mr. Sweeney has provided management, operational and strategic services to a number of leading health care organizations, including CEP America, Medicus Medical Group, TeamHealth (where he was a founder and Principal), and Challenger Corporation (where he served as CEO for 15 years). Sweeney has two exits on record. He personally raised over ten million dollars from individual clinicians during his tenure at Challenger. He is also the author of three published books and dozens of journals and professional articles and has spoken at over a dozen national assemblies.

Michael F. Spitz, Zukunftstourist, Venture Capital, CEO

Lived in Frankfurt, Caracas, London, Singapore and Moscow. 25 years of experience in investment banking, also worked for engineering companies in the area of midway attraction and renewable energies. Since 2017, R&D and early-stage investor for the financial services area.

Themasap Khan, Civilization Ventures

Themasap is an associate at Civilization Ventures and leads the firm's technical diligence and academic outreach programs.

Themasap received his Ph.D. from Stanford in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, where he was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and Stanford Graduate Fellow. His research focused on using stem cell biology, genome engineering, and live imaging to elucidate biological mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders. His thesis work was published in Nature Medicine.

Prior to Civilization Ventures, Themasap consulted for CRV, Menlo Ventures and Biotech Connection Bay Area. He also started and led a successful tutoring business while pursuing his graduate degree. Prior to that he got his B.S. in Neuroscience from NYU while doing research in glioblastoma cancer modeling at the NYU Langone Center.

Michael Szalontay, Managing Partner at Flashpoint VC

Previously, Michael led private equity transactions for Renaissance Private Equity (currently Elbrus Capital). Michael was also an investment banker at Renaissance Capital. Michael gained his advanced BA (specialist) in Moscow State University for International Relations (MGIMO), where he was also a member of the chess and soccer teams.

Flashpoint Group is an international technology investment group that manages equity and venture debt funds with ca.US$220M AuM.

Flashpoint team backs series A international software companies with proven business models, launched by teams originating from the "extended" CEE ( together with the Baltics, Finland and the CIS), as well as Israel. Launched in 2012, Flashpoint Group has made investments in 26 tech businesses with 64 follow-ons, and exited 8 companies. The most meaningful of these include the sale of Shazam to Apple.

Sue Xu, Managing Partner, Amino Capital

Dr. Sue Xu is a Managing Partner at Amino Capital, and her focus areas of investment include data-driven solutions. She was interim CEO of CandyHouse and CyteSi. Since 2012, she has involved with more than 160 investments, including Assemblage (acquired by Cisco), Orbeus (acquired by Amazon), Ozlo (acquired by Facebook), GrokStyle(acquired by Facebook), Woomoo (acquired by Priceline), Contastic (acquired by Sugar CRM), Mobike (acquired by Meituan/Tencent), Evertoon (Acquired by Niantic | PokemonGo), Yiqixie (Acquired by Kuaishou/Tencent), Voyage, AIFI.io, Vicarious, Paperspace, Whova, WeTravel, Avail MedSystems, Webflow, Grail, Chime Bank and Wyze

Dr. Sue Xu began her early stage entrepreneurship when she was the founding scientist of GlycoMira (also involved in undergrad and PhD laboratory spin-offs). She has three patents and over 20 journal publications, and previously was a Postdoc fellow at Stanford University.