Risa leads the GE Ventures, New Business Creation team. Risa joined the GE Ventures team from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where she was a partner for 10 years. Risa has invested in and held board director or observer roles in over a dozen healthcare companies including several companies which she incubated and was the acting CEO.
Prior to joining the venture capital world, Risa worked as a derivative specialist on the Chicago Board of Trade, where she traded futures and options on government securities. Risa holds a degree in genetics and development with distinction from the University of Illinois, a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Chicago, and was a member of the second class of Kauffman Fellows.
When I was in graduate school working on my PhD in cell biology, I was also running a trading desk on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. I enjoyed both and wanted to find a career that combined my love of science and my appetite to take risk. I learned about venture capitalists from reading the book “The Billion-Dollar Molecule: The Quest for the Perfect Drug,” which is the story of the founding of Vertex, a public biotech company. I fell in love with the idea of translating scientific discoveries into businesses. A year later, I applied for the Kauffman Fellowship and matched with a private equity firm -JP Morgan Partners - where I helped build a venture capital practice. After JP Morgan, I became a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers.
In addition to equity investing, GE Ventures creates stand-alone businesses which is what I do We often work on multiple companies at once, so every day is different. In many ways, we ourselves operate more like a startup than traditional venture capitalists.
Overall, our team spends a lot of time evaluating business ideas, performing market research, writing business plans, and interviewing potential management team members. In working with startups, we make sure their offerings are market-ready. We use time-tested practices to evaluate product/market fit and new business models. We activate entities by mobilizing a team of internal and external experts. By working together from day one, all parties aim big and commit to a shared roadmap for success.
To date, we have built seven companies at GE Ventures. One example is Menlo Microsystems, a company created with technology we spun out from GE’s global research center. Another, Avitas Systems, uses GE’s Predix platform to advance the inspection services industry across the oil and gas, energy, transportation and aviation sectors.
Over my entire career, I have invested in over 20 companies, including several which I helped found. The total investment is on the order of several hundred million dollars — many of these have gone on to become public companies.
We seed new companies with up to $1M. We often start with an idea and a small team until we have the business model flushed out and the product idea validated with customers. We then orchestrate the Series A financing round. In some cases, we are the sole source of capital, other times we attract investments from respected partners to build out the company. We stay involved to help businesses succeed at each stage of their development.
What is the company solving for? How can we validate it? And is the market big enough? Those are three important questions that we constantly ask ourselves. The companies we start come from amazing ideas we hear through interactions with GE and its customers across industries, around the world. This approach leads to innovative businesses that solve a market need because of the insight and access we have.
I love entrepreneurs who create disruptive new businesses; however, there is a fine balance between being driven, and also being a good listener. I encourage entrepreneurs to surround themselves with smart people who have different ideas, and often more experience. Be open to advice and embrace it.
People. You need amazing people throughout the journey. Having passionate and committed team members is key, but you also need the right skill sets for the stage of the company. For example, if you are still in early product development, you may not need someone with a strong marketing background just yet. Finding the right people at the right time that gel into a passionate, cohesive team is an art.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
