About

Steve Brown is currently President of the engineering simulation division of Datacor, Inc. which includes Chemstations and AFT. Chemstations and AFT are worldwide leaders in process simulation software and fluid flow software respectively and have supplied the process industries and associated fields for over 30 years, From 1994 until the acquisition by Datacor in 2021, Steve helped define and grow Chemstations as a privately held entity where he has had roles in technical support, sales, marketing, and management. For 30 years, he has devoted his career to chemical process simulation software and promoting the positive impacts of chemical engineers and chemical engineering on a variety of humanity’s challenges.

Steve received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Scott Nyquist is a Senior Advisor and former Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. He serves energy and industrial companies on matters of strategy, organization, and performance improvement. During his 35 plus year tenure, Nyquist advised major electric utility, chemical, mining, and oil and gas, private equity, and industrial companies at the center of the energy industry. Nyquist joined McKinsey in 1984 and was based in McKinsey’s London office until 1998 when he transferred to McKinsey Houston. His main firm leadership roles included creating and co-leading McKinsey’s Global Energy and Materials sector and Sustainability and Resource productivity practices. Scott was elected to McKinsey’s Board of Directors. and participated in McKinsey’s review committees for partner performance. Nyquist is a member of the Shareholder Committee of WintershallDEA, a European independent oil and gas company. He is a member of the MAE board of directors, a Chile based hydrogen company.

Scott graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1980, worked for Exxon Production Research in Houston between 1980 through 1982, and obtained an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1984.

Scott Nudelman is co-founder and managing principal of Vitrian, a national platform exclusively focused on end-to-end facility solutions for biomanufacturing and a thought leader in expanding STEM career opportunities at the below-bachelor’s level. Prior to forming Vitrian, Scott founded GlenLine, a Maryland-based life science R&D real estate investment firm. Prior to GlenLine, he spent 15 years with Carr Properties, a $3 billion AUM owner/developer, with primary responsibility for investing activity in metro Washington, DC and Boston, MA.

Scott is a graduate of Dartmouth College and has 25 years of principal investment and community engagement experience. He serves as a trustee of the National Center for Children and Families and in development/strategic growth capacities for Miriam’s Kitchen and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington.

Sarvin Patel is an executive leader and operating partner with a global mindset, having gained diverse on the ground experience from working in 50+ countries on four continents. An engineer, business auditor, and businessperson by training, Sarvin believes business and life are done best by developing excellent relationships. Sarvin has led the development and growth of businesses from initial strategy development to execution, from organizational design & business process development to buildout, and from capital raising to sustained value creation. Most recently, Sarvin joined Curie Co in early 2020 as COO/CFO, leading operations and finance functions, and driving commercial growth of the industrial biotech start-up. Sarvin transitioned to an Advisory Board role at Curie Co in September 2024. Prior to that, Sarvin led the commercial area of a phosphate fertilizer company, helping to successfully restructure and drive growth through M&A. He has over 25+ years of experience, having spent over 15 years at Cargill Incorporated across multiple platforms including food and specialty ingredients, audit/risk management, investment management, and corporate development.

Sarvin is a chemical engineer by training and completed his MBA at the Ross School of Business at University of Michigan.

Matt Maloney has devoted more than 30 years to the innovation sector by leading and building financing platforms that deliver capital to innovation companies at all stages. Previously, Matt held senior leadership roles at Silicon Valley Bank over 18 years covering all its niche technology practices. He founded, built, and scaled SVB’s Energy & Resource Innovation, Frontier Tech, and Renewables Project Finance practices to be leaders in those respective markets. When departing SVB in 2020, these groups managed $12+ Billion of assets and had worked with over 2,000 companies from startup to large public. Prior to joining SVB, he worked at GATX Capital where he co-founded both its Technology Investing and Telecomm Investing groups which financed over $3 Billion. Prior to that, he was an investment banker for communications and energy industries.

Matt earned a BA from Guilford College and MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Mario Maia currently heads the corporate investment arm of Novozymes. His portfolio includes companies in the in the agri-foodenergy- health sectors.

He holds an MA in Applied Finance from Macquarie University, a BSc in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, and Executive Certificates from Harvard Business School and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Gerry Garcia brings over 30 years of experience spanning banking, finance, and the public sector. At Lehman Brothers and Maxim Group, he played a key role in equity syndicate coordination for IPOs and private placements, including Rosetta Inpharmatics and MindCTI. He also helped organize and launch a healthcare venture capital fund with Whitemarsh Capital Partners. In the public sector, Mr. Garcia led economic development initiatives for both the State of Connecticut and the City of New Haven, helping small businesses access capital, training, and talent. As Chief of Operations for the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, he was appointed by the governor to oversee critical functions impacting residents and businesses throughout the state. Additionally, he worked with the Mayor of New Haven on community engagement efforts tied to the launch of Avelo Airlines’ New Haven hub. Mr. Garcia has served on the boards of the Greater New Haven Jewish Federation and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and he is a dedicated volunteer for the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity.

Eric Woo is co-founder and CEO of Revere, where he leads product development and investment analysis & due diligence efforts. Prior to starting Revere, he was Head of Institutional Capital at AngelList, the world’s largest online venture capital investment platform that supports over $10B in assets and has participated in the financing of over 190 “unicorn” companies. At AngelList, Eric worked closely with investors to curate early-stage fund and deal opportunities. He also developed systematic and data-driven strategies for institutional investors. Over the last 12 years, Eric has helped allocate over $160 million in venture funds and direct co-investments. Notably, he played a key role in establishing the emerging manager investment programs at Top Tier Capital and Northgate Capital, organizations that collectively have more than $15B in AUM. Eric is an acknowledged thought leader in the VC emerging managers ecosystem. Before his venture career, Eric worked in pricing and risk management for a large insurance company and financial guarantor. He also has experience in online marketing and private market research.

A Bay Area native, Eric graduated with a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley and has been a CFA charter holder since 2004.

Dave McClure has been a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor for over 25 years. He has invested in hundreds of startups around the world, including 10+ IPOs and 40+ unicorns (Credit Karma, Twilio, SendGrid, Lyft, The RealReal, Talkdesk, Grab, Intercom, Canva, Udemy, Lucid, GitLab, Reddit, Stripe, Bukalapak). Prior to launching PVC in 2019, he was the founding partner of 500 Startups, a global VC firm with $1B AUM that has invested in over 2,500 companies and 5,000 founders across 75 countries. Dave created 20 VC funds under the 500 brand and invested in 20 other VC funds around the world. Dave began his investing career at Founders Fund where he made seed-stage investments in 40 companies, resulting in 4 unicorns and 3 IPOs. He led the Credit Karma seed round in 2009 (acq INTU, >400X return). His $3M portfolio returned >$200M (~65X) in under 10 years. Before he became an investor, Dave was Director of Marketing at PayPal from 2001- 2004. He was also the founder/CEO of Aslan Computing, acquired by Servinet in 1998.

Dave graduated from the Johns Hopkins University (BS, Engineering / Applied Mathematics).

Alan McCollough served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Circuit City before retiring from the company in 2005. Prior to his long tenure at Circuit City, McCollough worked at Milliken & Company where he held many positions, including Director of Marketing. He retired in 2022 as the Lead Director of VF Corporation and from the board of Goodyear Tire and is now currently serving on the board of La-Z-Boy.

McCollough received his undergraduate degree from Missouri Valley College and his MBA from Southern Illinois University.

Veronica Breckenridge is a seasoned firm-builder and multi-stage VC with a holistic perspective and a gift for problem-solving across a range of industries.

Prior to that Mrs. Breckenridge was Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company where her focus was in the Information Technology and Telecom sector. After McKinsey, she served as Senior Director of Strategy at Motorola where she led application ecosystem development and was first to develop a prototype of Siri on Mobile Devices.

After close to two decades of corporate operating career, she turned into a technology investor in 2015 and led a Chinese Private Equity firm to deploy close to $200M in Silicon Valley technology start-ups. She crafted a unique strategy to leverage the operator angel ecosystem in Silicon Valley and proprietary machine learning tools to create an efficient and scalable deal sourcing and filtering process that resulted in a high volume of quality deal flow and superior selection.

In six years with Hone Capital and CSC Upshot, she invested in over 300 companies that delivered over 40 unicorns, 6 SPACs, and 4 IPOs.

She has a B.A. in Applied Math from Yale University and an MS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley.

Aside from her investing, Mrs. Breckenridge is a passionate advocate for unification across all cultures and belief systems. She is the Founding Member and Executive Director of a documentary The Garden Bridge, which tells the incredible unifying power of music via an untold story of Jewish musicians who escaped to Shanghai during WWII and changed the Western Classical Music adoption in China forever.

Dr. Angela Wilkins is First Bight’s Partner. She also serves as Executive Director of Rice University’s Ken Kennedy Institute. In this role, she is instrumental in expanding the institute’s relationships with external partners, including industry and the Texas Medical Center.

Over her career, Angela has worked on data and computing problems in several disciplines, including engineering, life sciences, health care, agriculture, policy, technology, and energy. After earning a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Lehigh University, she shifted her focus to computational biology and spent nine years at Baylor College of Medicine as a researcher and teacher. She later served as Director of Clinical Research at the nonprofit Center for Science & Law.

In 2017, Angela founded Mercury Data Science to help early-stage companies solve data science problems. As co-CEO and CTO, she built a team of 20 data scientists and data engineers and helped dozens of companies achieve success. Active in the startup community, Angela acts as an adviser to the Texas Medical Center Innovation and a mentor for several companies. She holds four patents, has been involved in several federally funded projects, and published extensively.

Carlos Estrada has an extensive background supporting start-ups as well as commercial real estate and enterprise innovation. He led the formation of WeWork Lab overseeing revenue optimization, global change manage- ment, and collaborated with startups and SMBs to scale their ventures. He also led digital transformation efforts and built innovation hubs globally at a Fortune 1000 enterprise.

He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston.

Serafina Lalany is a First Bight Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Serafina has led the expansion of a budding innovation ecosystem into a network of more than 25,000 founders, investors, CVCs, and subject matter experts as the Executive Director of Houston Exponential (exited to Gow Media in 2022). Serafina has worked directly with over 2,000 startups developing resources and tools that connect founders to the talent, customers, and capital needed to scale. As an experienced startup executive, Serafina has worked across product, growth, and sales with both early-stage and high-growth startups within the SaaS and BioTech domains.

Prior to Houston Exponential, Ms. Lalany held roles such as a Venture Designer on the platform team at Mercury Fund and Investor Relations at Corbus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CRBP). Serafina is passionate about lowering the barrier of entry for early-stage startups. In 2019, she launched a startup investment platform that facilitated the deployment of $35M of venture capital into Houston companies and co-founded Houston’s official startup week, Tech Rodeo. Serafina remains an active member of the startup community and sits on the board of Diversity Fund Houston, a micro venture fund created to invest in minority tech founders during the “friends and family” round.

Dr. Eric A. Wold is First Bight’s Scientist-in-Residence. He is also a full-time Postdoctoral Fellow at Rice University where he focuses on the combination of Synthetic Biology and small molecule drug discovery to develop antimicrobials against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection.

Eric’s graduate training and expertise are in the discovery of bioactive small molecules. He has performed target-product assessments on numerous compounds in drug discovery efforts for psychiatric disorders, cancer, and infectious diseases. He has a special interest in biosecurity and life sciences entrepreneurship.

Eric has authored or co-authored more than 20 research articles, reviews, or book chapters.

Jonathan M. Mercado, PhD brings his technical and commercial expertise to lead diligence and firm operations at First Bight. Dr. Mercado consulted on projects for early-stage companies with a primary focus on go-to-market strategies and built a full-stack commercial team from marketing to sales and scientific implementation at IsoPlexis.

He holds a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from Baylor College of Medicine and a BS in Human Biology from The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Gaurab Chakrabarti is the co-founder and CEO of Solugen. As a physician-scientist, Gaurab took an oath to first do no harm—and for him, that goes beyond patients or medicine. In 2016, he started Solugen to decarbonize the chemicals industry, one of the most damaging for people and the Earth. Chakrabarti believes in using biology in unconventional ways to solve incredibly complex problems and is building a world-class team to join him on the journey. Chakrabarti studied computational neuroscience as an undergraduate at Brown University and received his MD & PhD in cancer biology and enzymology at the University of Texas.

Kevin Cocker is the Co-Founder and CEO of Proxima CRO, a regulatory and clinical partner for the emerging biotech and medical device industry. He is a founder and partner of the M1 MedTech accelerator and the Host of the Inventing Tomorrow podcast. Coker received a B.S. in Biology from the University of Central Arkansas, a M.S. in Pathology from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and J.D. and M.P.H. degrees from Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Ethel Rubin is an experienced life sciences executive with commercialization and investment experience across multiple therapeutic areas and modalities. She has held leadership roles in global clinical strategy, external innovation, medical affairs, business and operations functions in both large public companies as well as entrepreneurial ventures. She earned a PhD in Biochemistry & Biophysics from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, was a fellow in the Breast Cancer Research Program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and holds Board certification from The George Washington University School of Business.

Lekan Akinyanmi has over three decades of experience in the oil/gas and natural resources sectors. He currently serves as Founder and CEO of Cambridge Growth Partners, a holding company with interests in mining, finance, oil/gas, and renewable energy. Mr. Akinyanmi received his MBA from MIT Sloan Business School and his Bachelors in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria.

Dr. Guochun Liao is the founder of IDbyDNA, which focuses on utilizing next-generation sequencing and AI/ML for infectious disease management. He holds a Bachelors in Biophysics from the University of Science and Technology of China. He earned a Masters in Computer Science (AI), PhD in Genetics, and MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mario Maia currently heads the corporate investment arm of Novozymes. His portfolio includes companies in the in the agri-food-energy-health sectors. holds an MA in Applied Finance from Macquarie University, a BSc in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, and Executive Certificates from Harvard Business School and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Peter Oleksiak is a veteran financial executive who previously held the position of Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President for DTE Energy Co., a Fortune 500 diversified energy company, based in Michigan. Mr. Oleksiak received a Bachelors from Wayne State University (Michigan) and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Davy Wang is now the Global CTO for Linklogis (HK9959). Previously, he served as Senior Director at Oracle Cloud. Prior to this Mr. Wang served as Chief Solutions Architect for Tencent Cloud, where he built and customized a strong and robust cloud platform for international customers, as well as helped enhance branding awareness and reputation in the United States. He received his Bachelor of Science in Information Engineering from Chong Qing Communication Institute and an MBA from the University of Wales.

Alan McCollough served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Circuit City before retiring from the company in 2005. Prior his long tenure at Circuit City, McCollough worked at Milliken & Company where he held many positions, including Director of Marketing. He retired in 2022 as the Lead Director of VF Corporation and from the board of Goodyear Tire, and is currently serving on the board of La-Z-Boy. McCollough received his undergraduate degree from Missouri Valley College and his MBA from Southern Illinois University.

Mason Darabi is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at First Bight and a 2X visionary start-up founder, with an extensive background in Canadian and global capital markets, both private and public. In his most recent start-up endeavor, he founded, raised capital and served as the CEO & Chief Commercialization Officer for a Fin-tech asset-backed financing platform called Ovenue out of Silicon Valley for almost 2.5+ years. Furthermore, Mason has acted as a venture builder with over 10+ years of experience as a CFO of dozens of SaaS/Fintech, Ag-tech, and health-tech start-ups), contributing significantly to their growth financing, development of the go-to-market (GTM) strategy and determining the product-market fit endeavors. He has also demonstrated a history of serving as a CFO of a few of publicly traded companies in Canada by leading the go-public transaction and executing on M&A roll-up strategy of these companies. Also, in his corporate life, he has worked as a CPA for various public-practice firms and corporations such as MNP LLP, Imperial Oil, RSM LLP and PwC in Canada. Throughout his engineering and project management career in the IT industry, he played key roles in various projects including ERP implementations and Data Center developments to name a few. He has a tremendous passion in supporting the technology ecosystem globally and has previously served as a Director of Canadian Blockchain Consortium.

Josh Boen is First Bight’s Research Fellow. He is also a full-time Associate at Lux Research where he works on both the intelligence and consulting teams. Prior to First Bight, Josh spent time doing research at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. During his tenure, he performed drug discovery research on cardiovascular diseases such as atrial fibrillation and heart failure. His work was centered around using genetically modified in vivo models to measure phenotypic changes in cardiovascular electrophysiology. Following this, Josh joined a preclinical biotechnology company, SNO bio, to assist the management team with business development and R&D. Josh graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a B.S. in Molecular & Cell Biology.

Sophia Vitas is a Fellow and contributing member of First Bight’s Knowtion blog with prior experience in research consulting for AI utilization management and analytics in biotech environments. Sophia received a B.S. from University of Wisconsin-Madison’s college of Agriculture and Life Sciences in nutritional chemistry. She holds interest in synbio applications for sustainable health and agricultural practices.

Collin McColl, PhD brings scientific expertise in molecular biology and microbiology to support technical diligence. During his graduate studies, he served as Executive Director of Consulting at Enventure which supported a myriad of biotech startups in market research, scientific diligence, and scale-up strategies.

He is a PhD candidate in Cell and Cancer Biology at Baylor College of Medicine and has a BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from University of Rhode Island.

Paul Palmer brings over 30 years of serving multinational clients across complex financial matters such as tax accounting and M&A with strong management leadership and deep financial expertise as a former partner at Ernst & Young. Mr. Palmer served as a mentor and judge with the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.

He holds an MBA from the University of Houston and a BS in Accounting from University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Bo Zhao, PhD has a technical background in molecular biology and went on to multiple scientific roles at global companies supporting regulatory proceedings. Dr. Zhao co-founded multiple biomanufacturing companies and established his expertise in facility buildout and equipment procurement.

Bo holds a PhD in Genetics, Genomics, and Bioinformatics from the University of California, Riverside and a BS in Biology from Nankai University.