First Look SoCal Innovation Showcase 2024
May 21 @ 1:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Tuesday May 21 @ Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles (map)
The First Look SoCal Innovation Showcase is an annual celebration of the best early-stage teams commercializing deep tech and life science breakthroughs from the top research institutions in Southern California. This is the premiere gathering that celebrates research-based spinouts and connects them with top-tier investors and successful serial entrepreneurs with expertise to help them leap from the lab to market.
The day’s program will feature a pair of keynote presentations followed by a full program of 24 quick-pitch presentations with investor-led Q&A. Stay for the networking reception to (re)connect with the community.
Limited seats available for a special pre-event founder workshop on Protecting and Commercializing Intellectual Property. More details below.
Look Forward To…
Connect with investors, peers, and mentors
Unparalleled opportunities to connect with investors, mentors and other support resources crucial for early stage startups. Past years attracted over 300 attendees including over 130 investors such as Lux Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, Kairos, Wavemaker 360, NXT Biomedical, NEA, Elevation Ventures, FullCycle, Aligned Climate Capital, Mitsubishi Ventures and many more.
Keynotes
The opening keynote from Keith Strier, VP of Worldwide AI Initiatives at NVIDIA who will discuss the implications and opportunities of ubiquitous computing (AI) followed by a keynote from Mike Miller, Director of Product at AWS (Amazon) who will show you how they built a generative AI app-building playground in ‘startup mode’ inside of a massive company like AWS.
Startup quick-pitch presentations
Two concurrent tracks (Life Science and Technology) where each track features 12 startups doing 3-minute quick pitch presentations followed by 9 minutes of moderated Q&A led by a panel of investors, corporates and subject matter experts. See full lineup below.
The largest showcase of university-based deep tech and life science startups
This is SoCal’s premiere gathering of the best startups emerging from the region’s top research institutions so it attracts the region’s community in a rare concentrated program that celebrates the entrepreneur’s journey from lab to market.
Workshop for startup founders (limited seats available)
Learn from subject matter experts in IP law and licensing best practices for protecting and monetizing intellectual property as well as early stage startup commercialization of deep tech and life science innovations.
Networking Reception
Stay for drinks and small bites as we celebrate and connect with attendees and speakers.
Free Parking
Parking is available in the Skirball’s North Parking garage, located underground at the north end of the Skirball’s main driveway, approximately 150 yards north of our Main Entrance. Parking is also available in the East Parking garage, located across Sepulveda Blvd.
Lead Sponsor
Track Sponsors
Transportation Sponsor
Agenda
1:00p: Pick up Name Badge + Networking
1:30p: Opening remarks and Keynotes: Keith Strier, Vice President of Worldwide AI Initiatives at NVIDIA and Mike Miller, Director of Product at Amazon Web Services
2:45p: Startup Pitch Presentations
| LIFE SCIENCE TRACK | TECHNOLOGY TRACK | |
| Session 1 (2:45 – 3:50p) | Medtech Session 1 | Computing & Software |
| Break (3:50 – 4:10p) | BREAK | BREAK |
| Session 2 (4:10 – 5:15p) | Medtech Session 2 | Energy & Materials |
| Break (5:15 – 5:35p) | BREAK | BREAK |
| Session 3 (5:35-6:40p) | Therapeutics | Health Tech |
6:40 – 8:00p: Networking Reception
Why You Should Attend:
- Get a first look at emerging technology with high potential for market disruption and impact
- Discover companies seeking early stage funding to commercialize big ideas with massive potential
- See 24 emerging startups quick pitches w/Q&A led by specialized investors with deep domain expertise
- Unparalleled in-person networking opportunities
Registration
Speakers and Startups
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Keith Strier is vice president of worldwide AI initiatives at NVIDIA, with responsibility for NVIDIA’s strategic and commercial engagements with foreign governments. He also leads the company’s AI Nations Initiative, facilitating public-private partnerships that help governments build sovereign AI capabilities to drive economic growth. Strier has 30 years of global leadership experience, previously serving as the first global AI leader for EY and the first global chief digital officer for Deloitte. He has also been appointed to multiple AI policy advisory roles across the world, serving on the U.S. National AI Advisory Committee (NAIAC) to help coordinate the AI strategy for the President; as Founding Chair, AI Compute and Climate Expert Group, OECD, leading development of the first blueprint for building domestic compute capacity; and as the only non-Australian on Australia’s National AI Centre Think Tank. Strier holds a bachelor’s degree in labor and industrial relations from Cornell University and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law. He also served 10 years as a visiting lecturer at Harvard Medical School’s Center for BioInformatics.
Mike Miller is a Director of Product Management at AWS, leading multiple initiatives across AWS focusing on Generative AI. In November of 2023, his team launched PartyRock, an Amazon Bedrock Playground, a fun, intuitive, and hands-on generative AI app-building playground – no coding skills required. Mike previously led the AWS AI & ML Thought Leadership team, who brought AWS DeepLens, AWS DeepRacer, and AWS DeepComposer to developers worldwide, helping aspiring machine learning developers get hands-on with the latest technologies. In 2020 Mike’s team launched AWS Panorama, a service that allows organizations to bring computer vision (CV) to on-premises cameras to make predictions locally with high accuracy and low latency. Mike has been with Amazon for over eleven years, previously leading product management for Fire TV at Lab126 before joining Amazon Web Services. Mike has over 30 years of technology experience from startups to large corporations, including leadership roles at Google, OnLive, Motive, and Trilogy, spanning Silicon Valley and Austin, TX. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
PRESENTING STARTUPS
Life Science Track
Technology Track
Selection Committee
Thank you to the following members of the ecosystem who lent their subject matter expertise to evaluate the Life Science applicants. Criteria used were 1) novelty/quality of the solution/invention 2) size of commercial opportunity and/or overall potential and 3) do they fit the First Look SoCal mission of showcasing breakthrough innovations emerging from SoCal institutions. The final 12 startups were ultimately chosen by Alliance for SoCal Innovation staff using the feedback provided by the Selection Committee.
Allen Keel, Senior Director, Innovation at Edwards Lifesciences
Beth Andrews, Chief Digital Health Officer at Dell Technologies
Chris Bostick, Partner at OCV
Chris Lew, Principal at Rock Health Advisory
Dave Whelan, Managing Director at Bespoke Strategy
David H. Crean, Managing Partner at Coast BioVentures LLC
Debbie Lin, Venture Partner at T.Rx Cap
Jay Goss, General Partner at Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health
Kathryn Zavala, Chief Operating Officer at MedTech Innovator
Meet the "Judges"
Representatives of industry (VCs, corporate leaders) with domain expertise in frontier tech and life science innovation.
While at Monsanto, her lab led the industry in the development of a fluorescence polarization instrument and a patented assay to screen novel therapeutics for HSV. In collaboration with Pui Kwok at the Washington University medical school, a novel fluorescence polarization SNP assay was developed, patented and sold commercially. 1998 she joined Spectrum Laboratories as Director of Hollow Fiber Manufacture and Product Development. In 2000 she was the chair of the Gordon Conference on Bioanalytical Sensors. Dr. Levine has served as conference chair for the Selectbio conferences in Microfluidics and Organ-on-Chip for the last several years. Dr. Levine is a reviewer for the NIH SBIR program.
Stephanie Gonzales
Strategic Innovation and Care Solutions Director Kaiser Permanente
Permanente Care Transformation Office. Her team of physician leaders, designers,
and consultants explore new possibilities and create care systems, leveraging
technologies, clinical expertise, and human-centered design. The team is tasked
with transforming healthcare delivery through virtual care, analytics, and artificial
intelligence advancements. Stephanie is responsible for collaborating with multiple
leaders to set the strategic roadmap, oversee operational execution, bring
innovation to scale, and transform healthcare ideas into real-world solutions.
Prior to this role, Stephanie served as the founding Administrator for the Regional
Virtual Medical Center Clinical Operations team and has over 15 years of
operational experience in ambulatory and acute care settings. During her tenure
with Kaiser Permanente, she has successfully created high-performing teams and
executed new and innovative ideas.
Stephanie earned her MPH from UCLA
Steven Chin
Regional Director of Neonatology Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
About Steven Chin
Steven W. Chin, MD, MMSc is the Regional Director of Neonatology for the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Section Head of Quality and Performance Improvement for the Division of Neonatology. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Dr Chin completed his residency training in pediatrics at Rush University Medical Center and his Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine fellowship training at the Harvard Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship Program. He completed a research fellowship in Clinical and Translation Science and advanced training in Quality Improvement and Clinical Informatics at Harvard Medical School.Dr. Chin holds numerous leadership roles at the regional and national level including serving on the Board of the Providence St. Joseph Health (PSJH) Women and Children’s Executive Leadership Council and the California Perinatal Advisory Committee – Leadership Advocacy and Consultation (PAC-LAC). Dr Chin also serves as the Director of Virtual Pediatric Systems – NICU
Tari Suprapto
Director, Search and Evaluation (West) Novo Nordisk
About Tari Suprapto
Tari Suprapto, Ph.D., RTTP is a seasoned technology commercialization professional in the life sciences. She is currently the Director for Search & Evaluation for Western US and Canada for Novo Nordisk, and previously was part of the External Innovation team at Elanco. Tari spent over 15 years commercializing innovations from world-class research institutions such as the Salk Institute, The Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Tari has extensive experience in licensing, building and managing strategic alliances, and a strong scientific background in a variety of therapeutic areas evidenced by her Ph.D. in cell biology from The Rockefeller University and an Honors B.A. from Swarthmore College. Tari is also a member of BIOCOM’s Capital Development Committee and serves on the Board of the Association for University Technology Managers, the San Diego Innovation Council, and official advisor to Founders Corner Venture Capital in San Diego.
Kate Avaline Edwards
Early Stage VC/Startup Business Development AWS, Amazon
Duncan Huston-Paterson
Director of Business Development Amgen
About Duncan Huston-Paterson
Duncan Huston-Paterson is a member of the Technology Business Development group. Duncan focuses on scouting and deal-making to access innovative technologies and platforms that enable the next generation of therapeutics at Amgen. Prior to joining Amgen in 2020, Duncan spent 4 years at Integral Molecular where he led a team that developed, launched, and commercialized a novel target discovery platform, resulting in multiple partnerships with large Pharma. Duncan grew up in South Africa and completed his early scientific training at University of Pretoria, before going on to receive his DPhil at Oxford University in the UK, where he studied the biochemical determinants of bird flu transmission to humans.
Beth Andrews
Chief Digital Health Officer, Life Sciences and Healthcare Dell Technologies
About Beth Andrews
Allen currently serves as the Senior Director of Innovation for Edwards Lifesciences’ Advanced Technology Incubator. In his role, he brings marketing, engineering, and clinical functions together to discover and build the next wave of groundbreaking products for the future of Edwards, leading a team to build and implement the strategy for needs-driven innovation. The incubator is deeply dedicated to solving complex challenges in order to transform cardiovascular treatment and significantly improve patients’ lives around the world. Prior to Edwards, Allen spent time in product management and R&D roles in various medtech industries ranging from digital health (Verily / Google Life Sciences) to cardiac rhythm management (St. Jude Medical), as well as a stint in management consulting with PwC’s medtech strategy & operations practice. In terms of educational background, he holds an MBA from UC-Berkeley (Haas School of Business) and MS/BS in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.
Aiden Aceves
Vice President, Investments Insight Partners
Aiden traces his academic lineage to Caltech, where he earned his doctorate in the lab of Dr. Steven Mayo, a leader in the space of computational protein engineering. Aiden received his B.S. in synthetic chemistry from the University of California, Riverside.
Tad Funahashi, MD
Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer Kaiser Permanente of Southern California
Dr. Funahashi and the Innovation Studio take a people-first approach to healthcare to enhance the member experience by improving care across the continuum, leveraging big data to provide personalized and improved quality of care, and exploring emerging opportunities that have transformative potential.
Dr. Funahashi maintains a busy clinical and teaching practice in orthopedic surgery and is a Clinical Professor of Orthopedic
Surgery at University of California Irvine College of Medicine. Dr. Funahashi also founded and chairs the Kaiser Permanente
National Implant Registries that currently tracks the safety and outcomes of over 3.2 million implants ranging from orthopedics
and cardiology to vascular surgery. He has given hundreds of presentations across the country and internationally and has
authored more than 60 papers in publications such as the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, American Journal of Sports
Medicine, Journal of Pediatric Orthopedics, and Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. Dr. Funahashi is a diplomat of the
American Board of Orthopedic Surgery, and an active fellow of the American Orthopedic Association, American Academy of
Orthopedic Surgeons, American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy Association of North America, and a
member of the Orange County Medical Association. He served as the Chief of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery in Kaiser
Permanente Orange County from 1994 to 2012, the Regional Chief of Orthopedic Surgery from 2004 to 2012, Chaired the
National Chiefs of Orthopedic Surgery from 2004 to 2012, and an Assistant Area Medical Director from 1998 to 2012. He earned
his medical degree and completed his orthopedic residency at UCLA School of Medicine.
Allen Keel
Senior Director of Strategic Innovation, Advanced Technology Edwards Lifesciences
Tulsi Patel
Head of LA Office FedTech
Previously, Tulsi served as the Director of Innovation and Partnerships for VentureFuel. There she ran accelerator programs for Fortune 500 companies and led executive briefings focused on blue ocean opportunities and startup partnerships. Prior to VentureFuel, she was a Senior Associate at Plug and Play Ventures where she led investments and built multiple greatly successful innovation and accelerator programs. During her tenue, Tulsi worked with 100+ significant global brands, including PepsiCo, Arcelor Mittal, Swiss Post, Tetra Pak, BASF, Ajinomoto, Georgia Pacific, Coca-Cola, Sherwin Williams, and Dominion Energy. As a result, Tulsi has cultivated a nuanced skillset and extensive network of technology and innovation subject matter experts, including top tier investors, Fortune 500 companies, and emerging startups.
Zafer Sahinoglu
VP Innovation, GM – Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center MELIC – Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center
Zafer was a senior principal research scientist in MERL between 2001 and 2016. In his MERL years, he was an inventor on more than 80 patents, co-authored more than 100 international journal and conference papers, made more than 50 key contributions to international standards including ZigBee, IEEE 802.15.4a UWB PHY and MAC, IEEE 802.15.4e MAC, and MPEG 21. His technical expertise includes deep learning, stochastic signal processing, space-time adaptive processing, ultra-wideband and OFDMA wireless communications, and indoor localization and tracking, biomedical signal processing, and Li-ion battery modeling. He has written two books on wireless communication and localization systems published by Cambridge University Press.
Kathyrn Zavala
COO and Managing Director, Biotools Innovator MedTech Innovator
Kathryn previously held positions at the UCLA Technology Development Group, where she assisted with the commercialization of university technologies, and at Campbell Alliance (now Syneos Health), where she developed launch strategies for biopharma clients. Kathryn received a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cell Biology and Rhetoric from UC Berkeley and a PhD in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology from UCLA.
Farahnaz Forozan
President / CEO Forozan OncoGen Consulting
Eric Lee
Senior Vice President Aligned Climate Capital
Katie Vasquez
Investor Calibrate Ventures
Outside of work, Katie can often be found on the ski slopes or at a yoga class. She is also on the board of the LA Chapter of Synergist Network, a network of women in investing. Katie received a BS in astrophysics with honors from Brown University.
Best,
Saurabh Suri
Managing Partner CerraCap Ventures
Roberto Medrano
CEO Beach View Capital
He is has been an ICO advisor to more than 10 ICOs. Latest projects: www.Etheal.com , VaultBank.io, CapLinked.com, www.transitnet.io, www.BlockSafe.network, www.bonafi.io, www.ipwe.com, www.blockchainbtm.com, and others. He is also in the board of advisors to the following cloud AI companies: www.ContractSafe.com , www.DeepCurrent.com, www.durolabs.co. In addition, he is an advisor to http://www.actoneventures.com/ VC firm, https://www.manhattanstreetcapital.com/about-us, and http://nex3.com/. He has been on the board of directors or board of advisors for more than 20 companies and organizations among others: Arcot (Acquired by CA), Aventail (aquired by SonicWall, acquired by Dell), Encentuate (Acquired by IBM), Netscaler (Acquired by Citrix), Bigfix (Acquired by IBM), AirZip (Acquired by Willow Tech), Confluent Software (acquired by Oblix/Oracle), PivX (IPO 2004), Polivec, Clearpath Networks, Sand Hill IT Security (reverse IPO with EdgeWave), JackBe (acquired by SoftwareAG), NAFINSA, Bancomext, Technet. He has an MBA from UCLA, MSEE from MIT and BSEE from USC.
Jay Goss
General Partner Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health
– Early-stage company CXO (30+ companies)
– Corporate / New Business Development: Disney / ESPN, Reed Elsevier, Summa Group
– MBA, USC Marshall School of Business (Concentration in Entrepreneurship & Price Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies Fellow)
– BA Economics & Business, UCLA
David Crean
Managing Partner Cardiff Advisory, LLC
In parallel to his investment banking leadership, Dr. Crean currently serves in leading roles on the Boards of Directors for Histogen, Inc. (Nasdaq: HSTO) as Board Chairman and Chair of Audit, and the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA) as Chairman of Development and a member of the Executive Committee. He serves as a strategic business advisor for several life science companies in the U.S., is a limited partner with a leading life sciences venture fund, Mesa Verde Venture Partners, and a member of Corporate Directors Forum. Dr. Crean is also a contributing author for PharmaBoardroom.com and Forbes.com through his work with Forbes Los Angeles Business Council.
Les Karpas
Inception Partner Manager, Robotics, Automotive & Manufacturing NVIDIA
Ken Hayes
Executive Director Cleantech Open
Ahmed Mirza
Investor Techstars
Previously, Ahmed incubated ideas at Wavemaker Labs, Share Ventures, and Pilot44 by helping the teams bring various concepts to market. There, he partnered with internal corporate venture groups at Fortune 100 companies to launch new products and build businesses.
He’s also spent part of his career as an entrepreneur launching multiple ventures — from retail businesses to digital software products. His expertise in early-stage company building has helped him go 0-to-1 seven times in a span of 3 years. Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Ahmed was an investment banker transacting technology mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and partnerships.
In his spare time, you can find him cycling the sunny streets of Los Angeles, playing basketball (go Knicks!), and building elaborate Lego sets.
Erik Gonzalez-Leon
Analyst Propel Bio Partners
Lucy Abgaryan
Founder GrittGene Therapeutics
Iván Markman
Startup Advisor, Angel Investor Former CBO at Yahoo!
Iván is currently an investor, advisor and board member with a focus on Business to Business, Data and AI-driven SaaS businesses in Climate, Marketing, and Education technology spaces.
He was previously a Strategic Advisor at Yahoo, following four years as Chief Business Officer where he led the businesses representing most of its global revenue and importantly, turned it around and successfully exited it to Apollo Global for $5 billion.
Immediately before Yahoo, Iván was a special advisor to the CEO & Board of Directors of comscore, where he led a significant turnaround rekindling innovation, operational scale and growth. Previously, Iván was GM of Neustar’s Marketing Services business, after its $450M acquisition of MarketShare where he was COO. At MarketShare he grew the business and built the technology globally, increasing its valuation 15x leading to two exits. Prior to that, Iván held various senior strategic and operational roles in his first run at Yahoo after joining it via its acquisition of Overture. He started his career in Argentina working in various talent, sales & marketing roles at Procter & Gamble.
He serves on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for SoCal Innovation, a non-profit organization that supports the growth and development of Southern California’s innovation ecosystem, as well as the Board of the Center for Impact at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Iván received his MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and holds an MS in Finance and a BA in Business from Universidad de San Andrés (Argentina).́ He lives in California with his family and enjoys traveling, hiking, and DJing which was his first venture as a teenager in Argentina.
Participating Academic and Research Institutions
