ACTIVE SPARRING PARTNERS

TEAM PROFILES

Daniel Koppelkamm

Founder, Managing Partner & Investment Committee Member

Daniel co-founded Convergence Partners in 2018 with the vision to establish a VC firm that actively supports the internationalisation and potential exit of EU HealthTech in the world's largest healthcare markets. He has more than 15 years of High tech venture capital investing - and company building experience, focused on sectors that have a positive impact on planet and society. From 2009 to 2017, Daniel was Investment Partner and Investment Committee Member at Jadeberg Partners, a pioneering VC firm in European Cleantech-investing. Prior, Daniel worked for 7 years at Man Group, one of the world's leading alternative investment management firms, in London, Chicago and Hong Kong, focused on environmental technology investments. Before joining Man Group, Daniel worked at the EU headquarters of Intel Corporation. Daniel holds an MBA and BSc in Business Studies from Bayes Business School, London (formerly Cass Business School) and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Daniel loves the outdoors, especially skiing and mountaineering and keeps mentally fit with transcendental meditation.

Raj Airey

Founding Partner & Investment Committee Member

Raj has been in healthcare for 30 years, of which he spent 20 years in MD roles at Pfizer and Baxter in Europe and Asia. He is also a serial entrepreneur, having built and managed 3 high growth businesses. In the last years, Raj has been an active business angel and company builder in the HealthTech space. He is also an Accredited Executive Coach and mentor and member of the expert advisory board of EIT Health, a pan-European public private initiative that fosters innovation with in healthcare with EU, top universities, innovation hubs and large corporates. Raj is a graduate in science from the London University and has received executive education from both Harvard Business School and INSEAD.

Mikael von Euw

Operating Partner, Digital Health & Investment Committee Member

Mikael is an operational expert that actively supports the scale-up of our portfolio companies. He has 25 years of relevant experience in healthcare management and investment. He is the former Managing Director at Biofourmis, a leading digital therapy platform, and co-founder, board member, COO and CFO of Biovotion (sold to Biofourmis), a medical wearables leader. At Biovotion, he was leading all operational (R&D, Manufacturing & Supply Chain, Marketing &] Sales, Regulatory & Quality) and financial (budgeting, accounting, controlling, fund raising, contracting, strategic & business model development, partner negotiations) functions. He was also developing and executing Biovotion's growth strategy. Mikael also orchestrated and executed the sale of the company to Biofourmis. Earlier, Mikael was a co-founder of Sirius Healthcare Partners, a healthcare corporate finance boutique, and an Executive Director at UBS Investment Banking in the field of medical technologies and life science tools.

Dr. Jenny Hao (MD)

Operating Partner, Biotech

Jenny is supporting the development of our portfolio companies in Biotech, Biopharma and Computational Biology segments. She has over 20 years of experience in global pharma and medical device industries, having held senior positions at Pfizer, Novartis, Vifor and Takeda across the US, EU and China. With her strong expertise in business development, market access, and strategic partnerships, she has completed several cross-border business partnerships and licensing deals. In addition, Jenny has built a broad network with various stakeholders and conducted numerous market research to assess and validate the commercial potential of the assets. Jenny is also an active business angel in healthcare start-ups. She is passionate about helping young companies to grow and succeed. Jenny is a trained as medical doctor, graduated from Capital Medical University in Beijing, China; She received her MBA at Fairleigh Dickinson University and had executive courses at Harvard and other top US universities.

Stefan Säuberlich

Investment Director

Stefan has more than 10 years investment, M&A and operational experience with SME companies in the German-speaking region. Prior, Stefan worked as a Senior Investment Manager at Jadeberg Partners, a Swiss Hightech VC and Westlake Partners, a German private equity fund focused on landing and scaling life-science businesses in China. Other previous employers include Constellation Capital, a Swiss private equity fund and BDO. Stefan holds a degree in Finance and a CPEA from TU Munich.

Qiwei (Vivian) Zhang

Analyst

Vivian is responsible for supporting market research, deal database management and support of deal due diligence and landing of our portfolio companies in Germany and China. Currently, Vivian is pursuing a Master's degree in Management at EBS Business School in Germany.

Uwe Fischer

Head of Marketing & Social Media

Uwe has been working for various growing companies since 2001 and has been a marketing partner at Convergence Partners since July 2018. Most recently, he worked as a partner for marketing and communication and was responsible for online marketing, social media marketing and branding. The marketing expert gained experience in setting up networks and companies. He founded the first co-working space in south-west Saxony and is involved as the organizer of a local design fair with a focus on design and innovation. He is driven by the desire to seize new opportunities and move forward with courage.

Dr. Laura Johnson

Venture Partner, Germany

Laura is supporting the landing and scale-up of Convergence' portfolio companies in Germany. She has been working in MedTech innovation for 16 years with senior and executive roles at Siemens Healthcare in the USA and Asia. In the past few years based in Berlin, she has been VP of Clinical Affairs for Protip Medical, an Entrepreneur in Residence for Startup Bootcamp Digital Health, Head of Strategic Partnerships for the Berlin Institute of Health, active mentor to multiple young teams and startups in Berlin and a freelance business and clinical strategist. She is also an expert panel member to EIT Health and active contributor to the Charité Entrepreneur Summit. Laura is a graduate from Leeds Medical School and holds a M.Res. from University College London and a PhD from Kings College London in the application of Augmented Reality in neurosurgery.

Pascal Joncour

Venture Partner, UK, France

Pascal has been in Healthcare for almost 20 years, of which he spent 12 years in MD roles at Pfizer in Europe, notably participating in the launch of a new global business unit focussed on Integrated Health and “Beyond the Pill” solutions. Following his industry career, he became Managing Partner at Argon Global Healthcare, a leading network of independent full service healthcare communications agencies. As an agency executive he served medical start-ups and scale-ups and already well established clients within the pharmaceutical, med-tech, digital therapeutics and health insurance industries around the world by helping them build their brand and develop their business. He is a passionate entrepreneur, board member and angel investor focussing on driving innovation in Healthcare and Life Sciences. Pascal started his career as a strategy consultant at Roland Berger & Partners. He holds a Master’s Degree from EM Strasbourg Business School and a Diplom Kaufmann Degree from Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. He is also a Guest Lecturer at the Master in Marketing Farmaceutico at the University of Pavia.

Dweep Chanana

Venture Partner, Switzerland

Dweep is supporting Convergence' deal-sourcing activities in Europe and also the landing and scale-up of portfolio companies in India. Dweep brings over 20 years of experience of investing in and growing new businesses, and has advised companies such as Cisco, Vestas, Ericsson, and Microsoft on corporate innovation, investments, and new business development. Dweep is a Managing Partner of Anchor Group, a Deeptech focused investment and advisory firm, headquartered in Geneva. He previously led the venture investment activities of Momenta Partners, a leading global IoT advisory firm. Dweep has also worked in technical roles at Lucent and Hughes, with experience across India, USA, Kenya and China. Dweep holds an MBA of Geneva University and a degree in Engineering from Delhi Institute of Technology

Gerard Valverde

Venture Partner, Spain

Gerard is supporting Convergence' deal-sourcing and management activities in Spain. Gerard brings over 9 years of professional experience in investments. From 2012 to 2017 he worked in wealth management at Sandman Capital Advisors advising family offices and HNWI. Since 2017 he has been managing a Spanish venture capital investment vehicle, focused on Healthtech, Cleantech and Socialtech. He also managed a Business angels network and participated in 14 single investments, sourcing 700+ deals and analysing more than 80 opportunities. In this capacity he secured a co-investment agreement with the European Investment Fund, increasing funding by 4 times. Gerard has graduated in Business Management from ESADE and Tsinghua University.

Xingyue (Michelle) Chen

Venture Partner, Benelux

Michelle is supporting our deal-sourcing capabilities in Benelux, based in Amsterdam. She has over 15 years experience of business development, partnership development, investment, IP commercialization and marketing in diverse sectors of IT, consumer electronics, life science of international companies such as Alibaba, LG Electronics, Elsevier and Seagate Technology. She was instrumental in establishing Alibaba's extensive ecosystem in Europe. Michelle has a multicultural background and extensive experience of cross-border development between Europe and China. Michelle holds a degree in Business Administration, Marketing and Public Relations from Shenyang Normal University and Tsinghua University.

Boye Hartmann

Venture Partner, Nordics

Boye is supporting Convergence deal-sourcing and management activities in the Nordics and China. Boye has been an entrepreneur for 30+ years. Being a central person in the startup community (Humbolt, SEA, CBS, FI, PlugNPlay the Alchemist) Boye is spending lots of time in the engine room of the next generation Unicorns. Boye has Co-created 50 + companies and as an Angel invested in a similar number. In the last 10 years, Boye has been involved on the VC side of the table advising VCs, family offices and dealmakers in the industry. Boye Holds a degree from Niels Brock - Copenhagen Business college and sits on a hand full of Boards around the world.

Tal Gal-On

Venture Partner, Israel

Tal is supporting our deal-sourcing capabilities in Israel, based in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Tal consults Israel's leading corporates, NGOs as well as government institutions, facilitating strategies for China entrance as well as engagement with local partners. Tal serves as the Head of the Israeli Centre of the Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen (RITS), as well as the Head of China for the EEMBC (Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium). Tal holds an M.A from Tel-Aviv university and a B.A in Business administration & finance from the IDC, and he is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Dr. Songia (James) Wen

Landing Partner, China

James is the Co-Head of the International Division of the Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, a strategic China partner of Convergence Partners. James has more than 9 years operational and investment experience in the HealthTech and BioTech sectors. Prior, James worked as a product development manager at Shenzhen Ruiyang Biotechnology and as an investment associate at China Biocapital Corp. Other previous employers include Nanopower (CTO), the renomated Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable (Consultant) and Astra Zeneca (Lab Analyst). James earned his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Hongkong and his BSc in Biochemistry at Imperial College London.

Shervin Sharghy

Landing Partner, South East Asia

Shervin is supporting the landing and scale-up of Convergence' portfolio companies in South East Asia. He has been an active investor and advisor in the Asia-Pac healthtech market since 2014. He is the co-founder of myDoc, one of South East Asia's largest digital health platforms and Lifeforce Capital, an Asian Healthcare Private Equity fund. Prior, Shervin pursued a 14-year investment banking career, including 12 years in Morgan Stanley in Hongkong, London and Rome. In this capacity, he has led several landmark healthcare M&A financing deals, including a US$18Bn Bridge Loan Facility for Shire’s acquisition of Baxalta Inc. in 2016. Shervin holds a LLB Law (Honours) from Kings College London.

Harish Natarajan

Landing Partner, India

Harish is leading our landing, scale-up and cross-border licensing activities in India. He is a seasoned healthcare professional - with over 3 decades of experience in different industries and functions. Has held CEO / General Managerial positions in Healthcare companies, both multinational and Indian, for the last 20 years. His last multi-national position was as Managing Director of Bausch + Lomb for India, Thailand and Indo-China. As the founding CEO of HCL Avitas, he was responsible for driving a large scale primary care initiative in India in collaboration with Johns Hopkins. Post this stint, he founded HxCo - the Healthcare collective, with the intent of rallying the government and payers towards gaps in community based and primary care

Dieter Kondek

Landing Partner, USA

Dieter is supporting Convergence' fundraising, deal-sourcing and strategic portfolio activities in the US as a Venture Partner. Dieter brings over 35 years of professional experience in investments, executive management and company founder. From 1980 to 2003 he served in senior executive positions at IBM, Dell, Tech Data, Pivot3, MetaCreations and Linotype-Hell AG. In 2003 he moved to the US from Germany and CoFounded and managed several successful companies and raised about $250m in investments. Three have been acquired, where one was gone public with an IPO, generated a 24x return for the investors.