Team – SPIDEN

Team & Advisory Board

OUR PEOPLE

We built a team with deep experience in serial entrepreneurship, MedTech product development and Spiden’s key science disciplines.

OUR TEAM

Leo Grünstein

Co-founder & CEO

Founder of LG Capital, a Family Office focused on incubation of “big idea” ventures

Serial entrepreneur, investor & Co-Founder of more than two dozens international start-ups, with multiple VC investments and successful exits (e.g. MoneyPark, acquired in 2016 for CHF 153m)

Previously project manager at McKinsey & Co. & Analyst at HSBC’s M&A team

MBA Columbia Business School, B.A. St. Gallen University

Andrej Dvorak

Chief technology officer

Over 20 years in MedTech product dev. and team management (130+ people) in large (General Electric Healthcare) and medium size (Sorin Group, Esaote Group) companies

Drove tens of innovation projects from inception to commercialization

MA in Electrical Eng. from TU München (Dipl. Ing)

Daniel Thürig

VP operations & strategy

Former Associate Partner at McKinsey & Co. with 8+ years of experience in management consulting, focusing on strategy, M&A, and business building for major high-tech manufacturers and service providers

Operational experience in Design-to-Value, procurement and production programs for high tech products

MA in Economics University of Zurich

Övünç Okyay

Co-founder & venture builder

Managing Director LG Capital

Previously PE investor at The Carlyle Group’s $500m MENA Fund, analyst at Morgan Stanley and consultant at McKinsey & Co.

Diverse industry expertise with strong experience in investing, strategy and portfolio management

MBA Columbia Business School; M.Sc. Production Engineering TU Berlin

Designed and built at scale ML pipelines for leading global companies in healthcare, banking, retail and renewables

Data Science Lead at Databricks (Andreessen Horowitz backed AI/distributed computing start up now valued at $6bn+). Founded and lead team to create first production forecasting pipeline

First North America ML Engineer for AI company QuantumBlack; global top ranked employee co-leading analytics transformations for McKinsey

Thunder Shiviah

Chief analytics officer

Liz Peruski, PhD

Biomedical science team lead

10 years experience in biomedical research at top U.S. & European institutions; Postdoctoral researcher at MIT and EPFL (competitive funding from the Whitaker Foundation)

Next-generation brain and spinal cord implants; building bio-compatible microfabricated circuitry; analyzing tissue response to short- and long-term implants

MS and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University

Jean-Christophe Blancon, PhD

Biophotonics lead system designer

10 years of research experience in physics, materials science, and optics-photonics at Rice University, Los Alamos National Lab, Université de Lyon, and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Recipient of the 2018 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize for Semiconductor Physics and of the 2019 Highly Cited Researcher

Ph.D. in Physics from Université de Lyon and M.Sc. in Optics & Photonics from KIT

Paolo Livi, PhD

Opto-electronics development team lead

10 years of experience in R&D conducted both in the academia (ETH Zurich) and in the industry (Dectris Ltd.)

PhD in Electrical Eng., from ETH Zurich

Design of analog and mixed-signal CMOS integrated circuits (ASICs); design of novel sensors and of integrated sensing systems (bio-chemical sensors, hybrid photon counters); ultra-low power electronics

Joo Siang Ng

Opto-mechanical engineer

15 years of experience in product design engineering across precision optomechanics, fluidic handling, and motion systems. Former Sr. Mechanical Design Engineer at Qiagen

Successfully completed 10+ product design cycles (concept to commercial launch). Portfolio spans surgical microscope binoculars, video tubes and accessories; nucleic acid purification, fluidic handling and NGS platform for life science and molecular diagnostic use

Luis Miguel Jara Casas

Electronics engineer

5 years of experience in applied electronics research for high energy physics at CERN

Deep expertise in ASIC testing and characterization, especially in radiation harsh environments; radiation effects to electronics for pixel detectors, total ionizing dose (TID), single event effects (SEUs) and data acquisition systems (DAQ) development

MS in Electronics Engineering and in Physics from the Complutense University of Madrid

Andrea Sterzi, PhD

Spectroscopy application engineer

8 years of experience in designing, building and operating spectroscopes across a wide range of different wavelengths and methodologies at several institutions such as Empa or the the international synchrotron facility Elettra

Developed a market oriented deep-UV Raman spectrometer for water chemical analysis

PhD in Physics from the University of Trieste and BS in Physics from University Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Jannes Jegminat, PhD

Machine learning engineer

Deep expertise in recursive Bayesian inference, combining dynamics and uncertainty

5 years of academic research experience focusing on computational models of human behavior and synaptic learning; ran the AI-team at the student think-tank reatch

PhD in Computational Neuroscience from UZH. MS and BS in Physics from the University of Heidelberg

Ana Perez Carrillo

Business intern

Over 3 years of international working experience (Mexico, USA, Switzerland) in the Hospitality Industry and in the startup scene

Currently pursuing a MScBA major Business Development and Promotion at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts

BA International Hospitality Management from Glion Institute of Higher Education in Switzerland and UVM in Mexico

Gabriela Santilli, PhD

Analytical chemist

7 years of experience in biochemistry and analytical chemistry; postdoctoral researcher at UZH

Strong expertise in separation, identification and quantification of biomarkers, method validation, quality control, design and analysis of experiments, and operating and maintaining analytical instruments

PhD in Sciences from ETH Zürich, MS in Physical Chemistry from UFSCar/Embrapa Brazil

Nemanja Andric, PhD

Data scientist

5 years of experience in interdisciplinary research conducted in academia

PhD in Computational Engineering from ETH Zürich

Expertise in the area of computational science, data-based modelling and data engineering, numerical methods, probability theory and statistics

Andrey Katz, PhD

Data scientist

18 years of academic research in world top institutions: CERN, Harvard University, University of Maryland and University of Geneva

PhD in theoretical physics from the Technion

Major contributions in theoretical and astroparticle physics
Expertise in statistical analysis, mathematical modeling and machine learning

More than 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals

Lucas Binggeli

Business development associate

6 years of experience in Banking & Insurance

Master Candidate in Business Innovation and CEMS Master in International Management at University of St. Gallen

B.Sc. in Business Administration with specialisation in Strategy & Managing Dynamics from Bern University of Applied Sciences

Kerstin Brand

Finance director / PA to CEO

Fernanda Isabel Lavorato

Laboratory technician

Over 6 years of experience in clinical analysis laboratories in renowned health care institutions in Argentina

Broadly cross-trained in molecular biology, hematology, serology, microbiology and chemistry. Phlebotomy procedures interacting directly with patients in ER, ICU, OR and recovery

Laboratory Technician from Dr. Ignacio Pirovano Hospital in Argentina

ADVISORY BOARD

Christian Casal, PhD

Serial VC & PE investor with multiple successful exits

Formerly CEO of McKinsey Switzerland, and member of McKinsey’s Global Board, mostly focusing on financial services (Head of EMEA Banking)

Various Board positions in Switzerland incl. Lucernefestival, and Tafeln Schweiz

PhD and M.Sc. in Business Administration from University of St. Gallen

Stephen Oesterle, MD

Venture Partner at New Enterprise Associates in Palo Alto since 2015; serving on several boards (e.g. Baxter)

Formerly Medtronic’s Senior Vice-President for Medicine and Technology and a member of the Medtronic Executive Committee for 14 years

Served on the faculty at Stanford and Harvard Medical Schools while directing the Invasive Cardiology Services at Stanford Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital

Petra Jantzer, PhD

Managing Director with Accenture focused on technology and digitization

VP of the Board of Advance – women in business society

Formerly Partner with McKinsey, where she worked for 17 years, focused on Pharma, Biotech & Technology

Post-doc, PhD and M.Sc. in Biology and Immunology at Ludwig-Maximilians University

Omer Dzemali, Prof.

Chief Physician of the Clinic for Cardiac Surgery in the City Hospital Triemli Zurich

Ca. 20 years of exp. in cardiology

Full Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, State University Tetova (Macedonia); Lecturer in Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main and University of Zurich

Doctorate in Medicine from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz

Edoardo Charbon, Prof.

Full Professor of EPFL with over 25 years of exp. with CMOS sensors, biophotonics, ultra low-power wireless embedded systems, ultra high-speed and 3D optical sensors

Advised numerous organizations, including Texas Instruments, Hewlett-Packard, and the Carlyle Group

Diploma (ETH Zürich), M.S. (UCSD) and Ph.D. (UC-Berkeley) in Electrical Engineering

Joyce Wong, Prof.

Prof. of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Boston University with more than 20 years of experience in development of novel biomaterials

Research interests include theranostics (detection and treatment) for cardiovascular diseases and cancer; tissue-engineered and nanoparticle strategies for cardiovascular diseases

Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Simon P. Hoerstrup, Prof.

Chair & Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine (Uni Zurich) and Founding Co-Director of Wyss Zurich (Uni & ETH Zurich)

Prof. of Biomedical Engineering at TU Eindhoven, Associate Member of the Department of Health Science Technology at ETH Zurich, associate faculty of the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering

Co-Founder of a series of medtech and biotech spin-off companies

Laura Figulla, PhD

Associate Partner Transaction Advisory at E&Y

Co-Founder/CEO of coramaze technologies GmbH (founded 2013), where she built a class III implant medical device start-up from scratch, raising >10m EUR in funding

Co-Founder/part-time COO of DEVIE medical GmbH, a startup at early-stage development of a disruptive drug-eluting-valve technology

PhD in Health Economics from University Essen

EXPERTS

Tilman Humpl, MD

Mira Araujo Klein, MAS

Claudia Studer, FA