Brian joined F-Prime in 2018 and focuses primarily on investments in the biopharmaceutical and medical technology sectors. Prior to joining F-Prime, Brian was an engagement manager at McKinsey and Company, where he advised pharmaceutical and medical technology companies on business development, R&D, and strategy topics.
Brian holds a Ph.D. in immunology from Yale University and received his B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Notre Dame.
Rachel Feely-Kohl joined F-Prime in January 2018, where she leads the platform team for the tech fund. Prior to F-Prime Rachel spent four years in Chicago supporting community growth and expansion for high-growth companies, including WeWork and Startup Institute. Immediately prior to joining F-Prime Capital, Rachel was the Head of Community for FinTEx Chicago, a FinTech industry association, where she oversaw program development and membership. She began her career working for non-profits, where she helped launched entrepreneurial-focused community programs in the US and abroad.
Rachel received her BA in Government & Politics from the University of Maryland-College Park.
Jay Farber is a Venture Partner at F-Prime, where he leads early-stage investments in FinTech and SaaS companies. Jay joined F-Prime in 2015. He has led or participated in investments in Ashby, Papaya Payments, AvantStay, Quovo, Snapsheet, Vestwell, and System2.
Jay is also General Manager of the technology (GPX) business at Juniper Square, a leading institutional fund administrator and technology provider to VC, PE, and PERE funds. Juniper Square’s clients manage more than $1T in investor capital.
Jay is physically a Bay Area resident and culturally a Seattleite, but has invested across the country and does not hold the Patriots fandom of his F-Prime colleagues against them (mostly).
Gaurav is a Partner at F-Prime where he focuses on enterprise technology investing. He has led F-Prime investments in Threat Stack (acquired by F5 Networks), RiskRecon (acquired by Mastercard), Protenus (acquired by Bluesight), Risklens (acquired by Safe Security), Lighthouse, Canary Technologies, Funnel, Warmly, Deal Engine, and many others. Prior to F-Prime, Gaurav was a Principal at F-Prime’s sister fund, Eight Roads Ventures Europe, based in London, where he invested in European software and online services businesses and served on the boards of Appsflyer and Neo4j. Previously, Gaurav was a product portfolio manager at EMC’s largest business unit, Symmetrix. Gaurav was a computer scientist by training and spent the early parts of his career at Credit Suisse and McKinsey and Company.
Gaurav attended MIT for his bachelors and masters degrees in computer science, as well as his MBA.
Sanjay Aggarwal is a Venture Partner focused on frontier technology and enterprise software investment opportunities. Prior to joining F-Prime, Sanjay was CEO of Unicel Technologies, an India-focused mobile messaging company. Sanjay scaled Unicel to become a leader in the Indian market and successfully exited the business to Karix Mobile.
Earlier in his career, Sanjay worked at Devonshire Investors (the private equity group of Fidelity Investments), McKinsey and Company in their US and India offices, and at Berkeley Process Control (acquired by Moog Inc), where he built machine automation systems. Sanjay holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Chong Xu is a Partner at F-Prime. He focuses primarily on biopharmaceutical and medical technology sectors. He also works closely with the Eight Roads Ventures Asia team to manage portfolio companies and new investment opportunities in China. At F-Prime, Chong has been involved in a number of company formations including as a founding investor of AlphaGen Tx, Pediatrix, Skyline Tx, K36 Tx, and RareStone Group. Other companies Chong holds or has held board positions also include OnCusp Tx, Remunix, Shinobi Tx, Sironax, Semma Tx, Adagene, Innovent, etc. Prior to joining F-Prime in 2015, Chong was a management consultant at McKinsey and Company, a hedge fund healthcare equity analyst at Massif Partners and Affirmed Healthcare, and a researcher focusing on developmental neurobiology at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory in Singapore.
Chong holds a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from University of Virginia and a MBA from Darden School of Business, University of Virginia. He received his B.S. in biology from Zhejiang University, China.
Jessica is a Partner at F-Prime and focuses primarily on the biopharmaceutical and medical technology sectors. Prior to joining F-Prime in 2015, Jessica was an engagement manager in McKinsey and Company’s Boston office, where she focused on pharmaceuticals and medical products and advised companies across a range of strategic, organizational, and operational topics. She began her career at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the Biodefense Systems group, where she worked on developing novel techniques for the detection of biological agents.
Jessica holds a Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University and received her BS in biology from Duke University.
Stacie Weninger, Ph.D. is the President of FBRI and a Venture Partner with F-Prime Capital. Dr. Weninger focuses on advancing neuroscience research and early-stage therapeutics through strategic collaboration, investment, and advisory roles. Through these activities, she contributes to the translation of early discoveries into novel therapeutics and helps to build innovative neuroscience companies.
She currently serves as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Rugen Therapeutics, and serves on the Boards of Aratome, Atalanta, Engrail, and Tenvie Therapeutics. She was a founding member of the Board of Directors at Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI) and Neumora Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NMRA) and has held Board roles at companies including Annexon Biosciences (NASDAQ: ANNX), BRI-Alzan (acquired by MeiraGTx), Digital Cognition Technologies (acquired by Linus Health), Enspectra, Inscopix (acquired by Bruker Corporation), and Sironax.
In addition to her work in biotech investing, Dr. Weninger serves in leadership and advisory roles for several different organizations, including the Board of Target ALS, the Governing Board of the Michael J Fox Foundation Targets to Therapeutics Initiative, the External Advisory Board of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Rosamund Stone Zander Translational Neuroscience Center, and the Harvard Experts in Residence (XIR) network. Dr. Weninger also chairs the Collaboration for Alzheimer’s Prevention, which seeks to share learnings and best practices to facilitate clinical trials in early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. She is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of Denali Therapeutics, the Breuer Foundation, Brown University’s Carney Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, Harvard Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator Fund, the Indian Institute of Science’s Centre for Brain Research, MIT’s Yang-Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics, and the UK Dementia Research Institute, among others. Dr. Weninger was previously the President of Alzforum for over a decade and continues as a special advisor to the site.
Prior to joining F-Prime, Dr. Weninger was Senior Director of Science Programs at the Fidelity Foundations, where she oversaw biomedical research funding initiatives. Earlier in her career, she served as Project Manager and Senior Analyst for the Task Force on Women in Science at Harvard University and was a Senior Scientific Editor at Neuron (Cell Press). Dr. Weninger began her career as a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Bruce Yankner’s lab at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Weninger received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard University as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellow and earned a B.S. in chemistry with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Kevin Chu joined F-Prime in 2014 and is currently a Principal on the healthcare investment team based in San Francisco. Prior to F-Prime, Kevin was an Associate Consultant with IMS Consulting Group in New York, where he advised biopharmaceutical clients on development and commercial strategy.
At F-Prime, Kevin focuses primarily on investments in therapeutics, medical devices, and life science tools companies. He was a member of the founding team at Shinobi Therapeutics, led the fund’s investments in Cadence Neuroscience and Amber Therapeutics, and was involved with several legacy fund investments including Innovent Biologics (1801.HK), Semma Therapeutics (acquired by Vertex), Modis Therapeutics (acquired by Zogenix), Farapulse (acquired by Boston Scientific), Cytek Biosciences (NASDAQ: CTKB), and Sipai Health Technology (0314.HK). He also works closely with the Eight Roads Ventures China team to manage F-Prime’s healthcare investment efforts in China.
Kevin holds a B.S.E. from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied Bioengineering and Engineering Entrepreneurship.
Shervin joined F-Prime in 2012 to help start the technology fund. He focuses on startups building tools for scientists (e.g., Benchling, BenchSci, Albert), engineers (e.g., ReadMe, Codeship – acquired by CloudBees, Cloudant – acquired by IBM), and modern fintech infrastructure (e.g., Recurly – acquired by Accel-KKR).
Shervin began his venture career at Polaris Partners and previously held operating roles at The Atlantic and several MIT spinouts. He also worked for McKinsey & Company in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Middle East. Shervin was born and raised in London, and has undergraduate and master’s degrees in Engineering from both the University of Cambridge and MIT.