Dr. Risa Stack, Partner at TPB leads TPB’s life sciences initiatives, incubating, investing, and partnering with proven founders to build businesses leveraging new technologies in healthcare.

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While pursuing her PhD in Immunology at the University of Chicago, Risa traded derivatives on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. After reading The Billion Dollar Molecule, she decided she wanted to build companies. She was selected to the Kauffman Fellowship, a famously rigorous, 2-year executive education program in venture capital and innovation leadership. After completing her fellowship, she began investing in life sciences and information technology businesses at JP Morgan Partners. Risa longed to get closer to the cutting edge science, so she joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where she sourced, created, and developed life sciences businesses.

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At Kleiner Perkins, she realized her passion for building technology-based life sciences companies and has since created multiple incubation platforms. She built New Business Creation at GE Ventures, where she created standalone businesses from GE technology and started companies to address problems of GE customers.

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Risa has co-founded multiple companies, including global diagnostics pioneer Veracyte and electronic switchmaker Menlo Micro (where she remains an adviser). She’s served on boards of more than 10 early-stage businesses. When she’s not contemplating R&D breakthroughs in human health, or hearing business pitches from founders, she loves attending workout “boot camps” in San Francisco and enjoys learning about military and European history through world travel. Her favorite destinations include Israel, Japan, and Europe.

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