ARCH shares a fierce commitment to teamwork, consensus, mutual respect, and success for ARCH stakeholders. This strong corporate culture guides our seed and early stage investments in information technology, life sciences, and physical sciences.
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Scott Minick, Venture Partner
Biotechnology • Informatics • Medical Instrumentation • Pharmaceuticals
Scott Minick joined the firm in 1998 and was a Managing Director through January 2010 before becoming President and CEO of BIND Biosciences. Mr. Minick remains an active board member of several ARCH portfolio companies, including Chiasma and Sorbent Therapeutics.
Mr. Minick has been instrumental in the startup, development and financing of numerous portfolio companies including XenoPort (XNPT), FastTrack Systems (acq. by Medidata Solutions), MedVantx, Achaogen, BIND Biosciences, Celula, Adolor (ADLR), Chiasma and Sorbent Therapeutics. Mr. Minick formerly served as Chairman of Xcyte Therapies (XCYT) through its IPO in 2004 and subsequent acquisition of Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals (CYCC).
From 1995 until 1998, Mr. Minick was director, President and COO of SEQUUS Pharmaceuticals, a public biopharmaceutical company that was acquired by ALZA and subsequently Johnson & Johnson. From 1994 to 1995, he served as a director, President and CEO of OncoTherapeutics, a private biotechnology company. Prior to that, Mr. Minick co-founded and was a director, President and CEO of LXR Biotechnology from startup through its IPO. From 1981 to 1993, he was an executive of Baxter Healthcare, holding leadership positions in the device, service and diagnostics businesses. Previously, Mr. Minick was an executive at Eli Lilly.
He received his postgraduate training in neurobiology at the Salk Institute, an M.B.A. from Northwestern University and a B.A. with Honors from the University of California at San Diego.
Edgar Hotard is a Venture Partner with ARCH devoting a substantial amount of his time to developing relationships in Asia and particularly in China for ARCH portfolio companies. Mr. Hotard also serves as Senior Advisor to the Monitor Group, a strategy-consulting firm headquartered in Cambridge, MA and as Senior Advisor to MPM Capital regarding China investments.
In 1990 Mr. Hotard was elected President of Praxair a wholly owned subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation where he also served as Corporate Vice President. In 1992, he co-led the spin off of Praxair from Union Carbide. He retired in 1999 from Praxair as President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Hotard is a member of the board of directors of Global Industries, Inc., as well as a board member for two privately invested companies. He is a co-founder of the China Economic and Technology Alliance and the founding sponsor of a joint M.B.A. program between Renmin University in Beijing, China and the School of Management of the State University of Buffalo, NY.
He is also a member of the executive committee of the board of directors of the U.S. China Business Council. Mr. Hotard was the year 2000 recipient of the Great Wall Award from the municipality of Beijing, China. He is a graduate of Northwestern University.
Hong Hou, Venture Partner
Semiconductors • Chemicals/Specialty Materials • OpticsHong Hou, Ph.D. is a Venture Partner with specializing in semiconductor, optoelectronic, and advanced materials businesses. He is CEO of EMCORE Corp. (EMKR), where he developed their transceiver and high-speed vertical-cavity laser businesses. Previously, Dr. Hou was a co-founder and CTO of EMCORE PhotoVoltaics. Prior to his roles at EMCORE, Dr. Hou was a principal member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories and at AT&T Bell Laboratories. Dr. Hou holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at San Diego, an M.S. in Physics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a B.S. in Electronic Science from Jilin University. He has also completed Executive Management courses at Stanford Business School.
George Kadifa, Venture Partner
Software/Applications • Communications • Electronics/Instrumentation
George Kadifa joined ARCH as a Venture Partner in mid-2007 and is focused on information technology opportunities including software, enterprise applications, communications, infrastructure, networking and systems development. He also lends his considerable expertise to portfolio executive teams, advising on strategy, product development, and execution.
Mr. Kadifa has a distinguished technology career serving in chief executive and other senior management positions as well as in management consulting, research and development. Most recently, he was the Vice President of Global Delivery at IBM Global Technology Services. Mr. Kadifa joined IBM as a part of its 2005 acquisition of Corio, Inc. where he was the Chairman and CEO. Mr. Kadifa led Corio, a top application services provider (ASP) and a Kleiner Perkins-backed company, from start-up in 1999 through an IPO in 2000, and a subsequent sale to IBM in 2005.
Prior to Corio, Mr. Kadifa was Senior Vice President of the Industrial Sector at Oracle Corporation, directing the company's largest and most profitable vertical sector. In addition, he was a management consultant with Booz-Allen & Hamilton serving Fortune 500 clients. Prior to Booz-Allen, Mr. Kadifa was a Development Manager at Xerox, leading strategic initiatives and software development, in addition to obtaining two U.S. patents in operating system and user interface software and receiving the Xerox Inventor award. Mr. Kadifa started his career on the research staff at Fairchild Semiconductor.
He holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, an M.S. from the California Institute of Technology, and a B.S. from the American University of Beirut.
Ken Bradley, Venture Partner
Nanotechnology • Medical Instrumentation • Optics
Ken Bradley, Ph.D., joined ARCH in January 2008 as Venture Partner. Dr. Bradley has a rich background in discovering and developing nascent technologies and is supporting ARCH's life and physical sciences teams with a special focus on micro- and nanotechnologies.
Dr. Bradley most recently served as CEO of Arryx, a start-up company commercializing Holographic Optical Trapping technology for laser-based micro- and nano-scopic instrumentation in the life sciences sector. Arryx was acquired in 2007 by Haemonetics, a $2 billion firm headquartered in Massachusetts and developing blood management technologies that are key components of collection, surgery and transfusion services. Dr. Bradley continues to serve as Vice President of Development for Haemonetics. Previously, Dr. Bradley founded and served as President of Phoenician Market Places, Inc., a technology innovation consultancy that fostered start-up companies by connecting laboratory advances with market opportunities.
Dr. Bradley began his career as an associate of Schlumberger-Doll Research and as a NATO Traveling Scholar. After obtaining his Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, he conducted research at MIT as a post-doctoral fellow and then served as a visiting scholar at Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Bradley was an early member of the scientific staff at Nanophase Technologies, a nano-materials firm and an ARCH Venture Fund I and II portfolio company. He also held business development and general management roles in financial and data publishing.
Dr. Bradley received his post-doctoral training at MIT. He holds a Ph.D. from Brown University and a B.A. from Cornell University.
Tom Brennan, Venture Partner & Entrepreneur in Residence at Sandia National Laboratories
Alternative Energy • Semiconductors • Chemicals/Specialty Materials • Optics
In April 2008, Tom Brennan joined ARCH as a Venture Partner. He has special focus on ARCH activities at Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory. During his first year with ARCH, he served as an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), a position supported by a Department of Energy grant awarded to ARCH early in 2008.
Mr. Brennan began his career as a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs, then joined Sandia in 1986 where he became a senior member of the technical staff focused on the material growth of III-V semiconductor materials and devices. Mr. Brennan's work included the growth of some of the first 'vertical cavity surface-emitting laser' (VCSEL) material at Sandia and in the U.S., and the development of new and unique VCSEL manufacturing techniques. In 1994, Mr. Brennan and a colleague from SNL collaborated with ARCH Managing Directors, Clint Bybee and Keith Crandell, to license the VCSEL technology from SNL and co-founded MicroOptical Devices. Mr. Brennan was Co-President of MODE through December 1997 when EMCORE Corp. acquired MicroOptical Devices and established a new business unit called EMCORE Photovoltaics, which Mr. Brennan started-up and led as its General Manager.
In 2001, Mr. Brennan was named President and CEO of Zia Laser, a spin-out from the Center for High Technology Materials at the University of New Mexico, which developed quantum dot laser diodes. He also served as Chairman of Medical Lighting Solutions, which uses solid state lighting to treat disease.
Mr. Brennan holds an A.S. in Chemistry from the Florida Institute of Technology, a B.S. in Biochemistry from Monmouth College, and an M.S. in Material Science from Steven’s Institute of Technology. He has published more than 120 articles and holds twelve patents issued and pending.
Nicholas Darby, Executive in Residence
Optics • Semiconductors • Chemicals/Specialty Materials • Alternative Energy • Nanotechnology • Electronics/Instrumentation
Nicholas Darby, Ph.D., joined ARCH as an Executive in Residence in late 2008. Dr. Darby brings considerable expertise in new business development and evaluating and shaping nascent companies for venture investing.
Dr. Darby is a founding member and Director for more than twelve years in the Corporate Venture Capital Group at Dow Chemical, one of the most successful corporate venture groups in the world in capital deployed, profitability and longevity. He was responsible for numerous investments in corporate spin-outs and university-based start-up companies, primarily in the Physical Sciences.
Prior to his work with Dow’s venture group, Dr. Darby was an executive in Dow Chemical Canada’s Research and Development and in Corporate New Business Development. He directed programs in many industries and diverse markets including energy generation, advanced materials and electronics (including displays, data storage, compound semiconductors, organic electronics, and packaging/interconnect).
Dr. Darby received post-doctoral training at the University of British Columbia and was a Fellow at University College, London. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, and a B.Sc. with Honors from Queen’s University, Canada.
Nathaniel David, Venture Partner
Biotechnology • Pharmaceuticals • Clean Tech
Over the last decade, Nathaniel David, Ph.D. has co-founded five technology companies that have collectively raised more than $700 million in financing. Teaming with ARCH in 2009, Dr. David is building new companies that create disruptive technologies to address global-scale problems.
During the last year of his doctoral work (1998) at the University of California, Berkeley, he co-founded Syrrx, which was acquired in 2005 by Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The first drug to arise from Syrrx’s research programs (ALOGLIPTIN, a DPP4 inhibitor for the treatment of type 2 diabetes) has been approved in Japan and is awaiting regulatory approval in the EU and in the US. In 2003, Dr. David co-founded Achaogen, an antibiotic discovery company developing a potent anti-gram negative antibiotic now in Phase II clinical development. Teaming up with a group of former Amgen employees, in 2006 he co-founded Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, an aesthetic medical firm, where he served for four years as Chief Science Officer, a role in which he managed all pre-clinical drug discovery efforts. The company has multiple drug candidates in clinical trials.
In the clean technology arena, Dr. David is co-founder of Sapphire Energy, a biotechnology-driven energy company developing next generation fuels that are 100% compliant with the current fuel infrastructure, and Kilimanjaro Energy, a company developing energy efficient methods to harvest and concentrate atmospheric CO2 for use in the production of liquid transportation fuels with dramatically reduced carbon footprints.
Dr. David holds numerous pending and issued patents in fields such as nanovolume crystallography, antibiotic resistance, and aesthetic medicine. He serves on the board of directors of Kilimanjaro Energy, Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, and Sapphire Energy and is a member of the board of trustees of the University of California Foundation. Dr. David was named one of the Top 100 innovators in the world under 35 by the MIT Technology Review.
Dr. David holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Molecular and Cellular Biology and an A.B. in Biology from Harvard College.
Alex Rives, Venture Partner
Biotechnology
Alex Rives is a Venture Partner at ARCH and has worked with ARCH since 2005. He concentrates on biotechnology as it intersects with problems ranging from medicine and materials, to the environment.
Alex co-founded, and served as Founding President of Fate Therapeutics. Fate is pioneering regenerative medicine without embryonic stem cells and has been widely recognized for the groundbreaking potential of its research, including being named by the MIT Technology Review in 2010 as one of the world’s 50 most innovative companies. During his tenure at ARCH, Alex has supported the development of ARCH portfolio companies in a number of direct operational roles, including at the Accelerator program, where he contributed to the founding, early growth, and management of Theraclone Sciences, VLST, and Allozyne.
Alex graduated with distinction in Philosophy and Biology from Yale University, magna cum laude with a commendation in biotechnology. He has published peer-reviewed research in computational systems biology.
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