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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Ajit Medhekar, Venture Partner
Semiconductors • Optics • Communications • Advanced Materials
Ajit Medhekar, founder, chairman and CEO of Lara Technology and empowerTel Networks, joined ARCH in January 2007 as a Venture Partner focused on investments in the physical sciences, including semiconductors, communications, optics and advanced materials. He is a director of Shocking Technologies, MediaPhy, Artificial Muscle, and MobileVerbs.
Mr. Medhekar brings a long history of technical expertise and entrepreneurial success in launching, developing and investing in high technology companies across multiple industries. Throughout his career, he has worked in advanced technologies addressing semiconductor design and fabrication, and communications. In 1997, he founded Lara Technology, which developed high speed silicon search-engines and was acquired by Cypress Semiconductor in mid-2001. In 2000, he founded empowerTel, a VoIP company that was acquired two years later by IP Unity. Mr. Medhekar joined the Board of Directors of IP Unity following the acquisition.
Mr. Medhekar received his SM and SB degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1980 with a specialization in semiconductor and IC design. He started his technical career at National Semiconductor and Synertek before joining Monolithic Memories, Inc., where he successfully decreased time to market for new products from 3 to 1.5 years, until the company was acquired by Advanced Micro Devices. He then joined Alliance Semiconductor and helped shape the company as its Vice President of Memory Products from a start-up to a successful public offering in 1993.
Mr. Medhekar has been actively engaged in advising and mentoring entrepreneurs and start-ups in Silicon Valley, is a member of the Band of Angels, the Sand Hill Angels and a Charter Member of TiE Silicon Valley. He has served on the boards of several technology companies and has co-authored over thirteen patents.
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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 ARCH and serves as a board member for Crystal IS. Dr. Hou specializes in semiconductor, optoelectronic, and advanced materials businesses. He is President and COO 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. He currently works with the portfolio companies, Univa and MobileVerbs.
Mr. Kadifa has a distinguished 25-year 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 in Chicago. 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. The consultancy's specialization included technology developed in academic and government research facilities and in early-stage commercial environments where there is large uncertainty in choosing optimum development paths.
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. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics from Brown University and a B.A. in Physics from Cornell University.
Tom Brennan, Venture Partner & Entrepreneur in Residence at Sandia National Laboratories
Clean Energy Innovations • Semiconductors • Chemicals/Specialty Materials • Optics
In April 2008, Tom Brennan joined ARCH as a Venture Partner with special focus 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. For further information, read the Department of Energy press release.
Mr. Brennan began his career as a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs, then joined SNL 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. Mr. Brennan is a Commissioner for the State of New Mexico in the Economic Development Department and serves on the board of directors for Accion NM, a global not-for-profit micro-lending firm that promotes entrepreneurship.
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