Christopher Rowan: Founder & Managing Director, Arscentia
Chris is the founder of Arscientia and has 30 years of executive management experience as a GM, in marketing, sales, and business development. He has experience in the semiconductor, software, chemical, advanced materials and photonics industries. His principal strengths include strategic planning, new business development, process invention, forecasting, and new product introductions. Chris is the inventor of the Consistency of Purpose (CoP) and Risk to Value (R2V) strategic planning processes. He has successfully launched 5 new product lines. As a GM and responsible for strategic marketing at Cymer, sales increased from $6 million to $203 million in less than 3 years with a market share over 90% and two years later to approximately $500 million. He was a SEMATECH ITRS roadmap voting member, obtained a $1.1 SEMATECH contract for optical material testing, won a DOE CRADA for superconductor research and analysis. Chris holds two software patents and has served on 3 boards and 5 advisory boards and is a founding board member of the Design Museum in Boston. He is a Strategic Advisor to NewCap Partners an investment bank, an MIT Enterprise Forum Co-Programing Chair, a mentor at UCSD’s NSF I-corps program, and has moderated an IEEE panel on IoT and MIT forum on AI in health care. He was a BlueTech investor judge in 2018 and Prism Award judge in 2018 & 2019. He is currently a Cove Fund partner. He earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Connecticut and was awarded the Hurley Calculus Award.
Doug Komen: Managing Director, Arscientia
Doug is co-inventor of the risk to value process and software. The first strategic portfolio optimization software for the VC industry.
As a partner in one of the first electronic trading firms trading $65B annually, one of the top 5 in the industry. As a founding member of the Investment and Risk Committee, he approved all trading strategies across every asset class. He architected and developed the earliest electronic trading systems including the first electronic S&P500 futures options quote. Additionally, he worked on the first electronic audit trail which remains at the core of futures and options clearing systems. Doug taught futures and option theory and practice as an instructor at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). As a member of the CME Market Making Committee, he established rules of engagement for electronic options trading, and on the CTR Committee acted as oversight and enforcement of electronic audit trail implementation and compliance. He was a SCORE small business mentor and a Vistage Coach. He has 2 patents pending in financial systems and in the field of integrating photonics, software, hardware, algorithms, and fraud detection.
With the unique ability to price illiquid assets and assets that have never been priced before, he has invested in over 20 industries across all asset classes. These cover the entire risk spectrum, from roles as a founder and angel investor, personally investing and managing a fund alternatives and hedge funds, private equity, and as lifetime macro investor.
JR Badian, Principal Advisor
JR is the Chief Marketing Officer of Pillow Guy. Pillow Guy is a leading marketer selling products in Nordstrom, Macys, Wayfair, Overstock, Hautelook, and direct to consumer. Prior to this role JR was the CMO of Chef’d, a meal kit company that was sold to True Foods. For five years JR was the VP of Digital Marketing at MasterCard where he oversaw all digital marketing strategy and execution in the US.
JR Badian received his MBA in 1 year from Babson College (Babson College currently ranks #1 for Entrepreneurship for all MBA programs, according to the US News and World Report rankings.) In addition to his MBA, JR also earned a Masters from Columbia University in Organizational Behavior. JR studied at Indiana University Kelly School of Business where he received his undergraduate degree double majoring in Finance and Marketing.
Jeff Teza, Principal Advisor
Jeff Teza has over 35 years of executive management, marketing and engineering experience primarily in Software and Semiconductors. He has been involved with 15 startup ventures and served on5 boards. Jeff recently became an Entrepreneur in Residence for the University of San Diego. As CEO of Syntricity he develop and became an early evangelist of the SaaS business Model. As co-founder of Brooktree his roles included VP Marketing, GM and VP of Business Development where he was the center of the company strategy from inception through IPO. He started his career with Texas Instruments as one of the world's first 200 microprocessor design engineers. He trained the early Samsung IC design engineers in the early 1980's. Jeff earned a BSEE from StonyBrook University and an Executive MBA from UCSD.
Dr. Frank Bachner, Principal Advisor
Frank J. Bachner is a experienced high technology executive for over thirty years. His engagements span the globe with North American, Asian and European companies involved in semiconductor fabrication equipment, advanced packaging and materials. His clients cover a spectrum from large, multi-national companies to technology start-ups. He focuses on providing market analysis, business development, and strategic planning services to his client companies. From a technology standpoint he oversaw programs in the areas of silicon-on-insulator (SoI), surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, gallium arsenide (GaAs) devices, develop and manufacture alumina and aluminum nitride substrates for MCMs and Al/SiC metal-matrix components for advanced microwave packages. He holds four patents and is the author of over 25 papers. He is a member of IEEE and IMAPS.
Frank has a PhD in metallurgy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Emiel Thijssen, Advisor
Emiel Thijssen is an experienced marketing and sales executive which spans over two decades in “high tech”, predominantly in the semiconductor equipment industry. Emiel has an above average curiosity for new technologies and how this enables new markets and business models. Investigating business development opportunities he gained substantial knowledge of MEMS, HDD, IoT/Sensors and BioChip technologies. The marketing initiatives he managed have generated multiple billion dollars in product and after-sales revenues.
Emiel lived and worked in the US, Germany and Netherlands, and is well versed with the cultural aspects of doing business abroad, and was responsible for customers in 21 countries across the globe. He has closed approximately $300MM in sales.
Emiel grew up in the Netherlands and has a BSEE equivalent degree.
Jeffrey Axelrod, Advisor
Jeffrey Axelrod is an entrepreneurial executive with 20+ years of experience in Fintech and enterprise software. He has an extensive background in Business Development, Technology, and Product, and has served in multiple senior, key management, and founder roles with a successful track record of facilitating company acquisitions.
He was the founder and CEO of Cogency Software, where he developed and marketed a product suite to help alternative-investment firms manage growth and complexity. This industry-recognized portfolio management and accounting suite continues to be used today by leading asset-allocators. After leading the company to a successful acquisition by Backstop Solutions Group, he became the CTO there where he was responsible for operations of a 100+ person agile SaaS Development and product team across multiple cities and counties, building and delivering product via web, mobile, APIs, and desktop add-ins.
Today, Jeffrey runs Fintech Alchemy, a consultancy for startups and asset-management firms and is on the selection committee of the EvoNexus Fintech Incubator in San Mateo, CA. His fields of expertise are in product strategy, marketing, technology, and leadership. He has extensive experience in building development frameworks, rules-based engines, and B2B products. His domain expertise is in accounting, finance, portfolio management, mortgage and p2p lending.
Dr. Jim Turlo, Advisor
James Turlo received his BS degree from MIT where he studied carbon epoxy composite materials as a Materials Science major. While in the Aeronautics Department at MIT, he created a process to manufacture the first non-laminar composites including carbon tubes and canals, which are now widely used in race cars, military vehicles, bicycles, and other sports and medical equipment. After a brief stint as a Metallurgist in a forge shop supporting the Detroit auto industry, he entered Stanford to pursue a PhD in Materials Science studying thin aluminum films on silicon substrates. He studied the mechanical and thermal behavior of aluminum films in computer chips leading to his diffusion theory of stress relaxation, which was extensively applicable to the electromigration failure mechanism of chips during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Dr. Turlo entered the semiconductor capital equipment industry working as a Marketing executive at Mattson Technology, KLA-Tencor, Cymer, and Lam Research over the past 25 years. In additions Jim Turlo pursues interests in mathematics and theoretical physics.
Steve Bodgan, Analyst
Steve is a Navy veteran and technology innovator. He has 20 years’ of experience in IT ranging from systems engineer to leading a global data integration team for a Fortune 500 company. He recently began transitioning to a data science career and is currently enrolled in a master’s program at UCSD in Data Science. He is currently doing work in data engineering and is a volunteer with the Startup San Diego non-profit organization. He has a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Tulane University and a master’s degree in Computer Science.
Dr. Steven M. Green, Analyst
Dr. Green brings a diverse background straddling the boundaries between product development, marketing, and customer support. He spent 10 years as a leader in an entrepreneurial environment, leveraging Small Business Innovative Research funding to transition from microelectronic materials research to product development, commercialization, marketing, sales, and support. He then brought those skills and knowledge to bear in enterprise software and systems development. Dr. Green has spent the past 17 years developing, deploying, and supporting clinical information solutions in the healthcare technology space.
Dr. Green earned a Bachelors degree in Physics, and Masters and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego. He has 5 patents and over 50 peer-reviewed publications.
Gary Hultquist, Advisor
Gary has over 25 years’ experience as a strategic and financial advisor and M&A specialist for technology companies, handling mergers, acquisitions, licensing, joint ventures and financing in the U.S. Europe and Japan in the following sectors: Advanced Materials, Semiconductors, Healthcare/Medical Devices, Information Technology (including SaaS, web and mobile apps), and Energy (including renewables).
He has represented or completed transactions with these U.S. private equity firms and public companies: Advanced Energy, Applied Materials, ASYST, Becton-Dickinson, FSI International, Harris, Rohm & Haas, TA Associates, Tegal, Thomas Weisel Capital Partners, L.P. and Varian Associates, Inc. Gary also has extensive cross-border experience, having represented or completed transactions with these international public companies: Adidas (Germany), ASML (Netherlands), Clariant (Switzerland), Furukawa Electric (Japan), Micronic Laser (Sweden), Saint-Gobain (France), Sumitomo (Japan), Suss Microtec (Germany), Tokyo Electron (Japan) and Trikon Technologies (U.K.).
Gary is the Owner of Hultquist Strategic Advisors and a Managing Director of Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide, located in Laguna Hills, California (where Securities are offered through its affiliate Corporate Finance Securities, Inc., a broker-dealer and member of FINRA/SIPC).
Gary also has extensive experience on Boards of Directors of NYSE, NASDAQ and private companies, including Chair, Audit Committee; Member of IPO Pricing Committee; and Chair, Special Committee of Independent Directors, ONTRAK Systems, Inc., during IPO and $250,000,000 acquisition by Lam Research. He was also on the Board of Rodel, Inc. during rapid growth and $200 million acquisition by Rohm & Haas (via subsequent mergers, the Rodel technology and IP are now part of DuPont Electronic Materials).
Formerly, as a General Partner of law firms in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, Gary specialized in securities, corporate and IP litigation, including work for clients Citibank, FDIC, FedEx, Halliburton, Hillman Ventures, TWA and Varian Associates, Inc. Gary served in the U.S. Army, including a tour of duty in Vietnam. He is a member of the California Bar Association and has held Series 7, 24 and 63 securities licenses from FINRA.
Gary received a B.S. Degree in Accounting/Finance from Northwest Missouri State University and a Juris Doctor Degree from the University of Missouri. He attended post-graduate studies in Taxation at The George Washington University.
Dr. Ted Moon, Advisor
Theodore (Ted) Moon, Ph.D., has more than two decades of engineering, marketing, consulting, and business development experience. Ted has put his engineering and marketing skills to work for clients in industry sectors including oil and gas, renewable energy, information technology, petrochemicals, and medical technology.
Ted was the Global Product Marketer for corrosion inhibitors for Nalco Company, where he oversaw marketing and product rollout strategies for the product line with annual revenue of $350 million. In this role, Ted oversaw the development and rollout of four new products for the company’s largest global customer and acted as the liaison between sales and R&D for product developments that had a revenue potential of $10 million, with year-on-year growth of 15%.
Ted’s market research experience includes business plan development and marketing strategy for industries including oil & gas, alternative energy, life sciences, and industrial fire services. Ted researched and wrote a comprehensive report outlining the state of oil & gas exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico following a tumultuous hurricane season that resulted in significant damage and interrupted operations on several offshore production platforms. This report helped a client recoup US$9 million in insurance money for lost business due to the storms.
Ted holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering from the Pennsylvania State University and a B.S. in chemistry from California University of Pennsylvania. During his graduate studies, Ted received an award by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Environmental Science Division for his research on novel surface-active agents for consumer recycling efforts. As a Chateaubriand Fellow, Ted conducted post-doctoral studies in Toulouse, France at the Université Paul Sabatier.
Calvin Chen, Advisor
Calvin Chen is the CEO of Los Angeles-based CrossLinkBio, a cross-border startup accelerator that enables commercialization of life science innovations into the Asian market. Calvin is an active early-stage investor and is on the investment committee of Cove Fund II, a $14.2 million seed-stage venture fund based in Orange County. He serves on the board of directors for Carlsmed, Inc and ECFX, Inc.
Calvin has more than 15 years’ experience in senior management roles guiding academic researchers with commercialization of their early stage life science innovations at institutions such as University of Southern California (USC), City of Hope and L.A. Biomed (now Lundquist Institutes). He has executed license deals in excess of $100M. He has led due diligence and executed a number of seed to series A investment deals with Cove Fund and other investments groups.
Calvin is well-versed in all aspects of early stage commercialization in strategy and IP development as well as working with contract research and manufacturing organizations to commercialize early stage life science innovations. He has served as panel speakers and judges at various conferences including MD&M West, SoCalBio Annual Investor Conferences, RESI conferences, etc. As a hobby, he also invests in residential and commercial real estate ventures in Southern California.
Calvin has a B.A. in Molecular Cellular Biology & Psychology from University of California-Berkeley and a J.D. from Loyola Law School. Calvin is a licensed California Attorney.
Frank Klemens, Advisor
Frank was the Managing Director of DuPont Ventures in the areas of Nutrition & Bioscience, Electronics & Imaging, Safety & Construction, and Transportation & Industrial. He worked closely with the DuPont business lines to capture new and strategic opportunities, primarily in the Specialty Chemical area as it related to IoT, machine learning, biotech, food, beverages, and supplements that address digestive, metabolic, and cardiovascular health. Other Specialty Chemical focus applications included specialty food protection, electronics and imaging, and construction and transportation solutions.
Previously, Frank was a Director of Licensing (in-licensing and out-licensing) of technology in DuPont’s Ag and Nutrition technology space. In this role, he helped start-ups develop and commercialize DuPont-licensed technology. His other roles at DuPont included Budget and Project Manager and a Regulatory Analytical Scientist in crop protection.
Frank was with DuPont for 29 years and is currently on the board of directors and advisory boards for several start-ups.
Frank received his Ph.D. and Master’s degrees from Purdue University in Bioinorganic Chemistry and a B.S. degree in Chemistry from John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Board Memberships
Christopher Rowan Memberships
Design Museum Boston - Founding Board Member
http://designmuseumboston.org/
2011- Present, Non-Profit
Design Museum Boston is a newcomer to New England’s cultural landscape. We are the region’s first museum dedicated solely to design. Our mission is to educate the public on the role of design in their lives and to unite the Massachusetts design community in ways that enrich our collective work and solve real-world problems more creatively. After all, design has the power to make our everyday lives more comfortable, more efficient, more exciting, more rewarding, more… better.
MOCHA - Museum of Children's Art - Board Member
http://mocha.org/
2008-2010, Non-Profit
MOCHA provides hands-on arts learning experiences for children and their families in our museum, in schools and preschools, and in public venues. MOCHA also prepares educators to teach art and integrate arts learning across academic subject areas. As well, we advocate for the arts as an essential part of a strong, vital and diverse community. We emphasize outreach to children in low-income communities that do not typically have wide access to the arts. MOCHA serves more than 30,000 children each year, in five program areas.
SEMATECH ITRS - Member
http://public.sematech.org/
1997-2002, Non-Profit
We accelerate our members’ success by addressing high-risk/high-reward challenges in semiconductor manufacturing technology.
Cymer - Founder Scientific Advisory Board
http://www.cymer.com/
1999-2001, Profit
Cymer is the leader in developing light sources used by chipmakers worldwide to pattern advanced semiconductor chips, and is pioneering development of next generation EUV sources.
Doug Komen Memberships
Infinium Capital Management Risk Committee - Founding Member
2001-2012
A Chicago-based proprietary trading $65B annually. Infinium traded mostly derivatives across a wide range of asset classes, electronically, on exchange floors and over-the-counter. Asset classes traded included commodities and softs, energy, fixed income, foreign exchange, precious metals and equity indexes. The firm also operated an asset management arm, Infinium Asset Management, which specialized in multi-asset class arbitrage strategies.
600 West Investments – Founder & Managing Partner
2008 – present
Private fund of alternative investments for over 12 years. Allocations in private equity, hedge funds, and mutli-asset
Real Estate Investment Partnership - Owner and Managing Board Member
2013 to present
Invests and manage hotel properties.
Not-For Profits – Board Member
Served on 6 Not-for profit boards with missions across children, health, community, and education.
Vigilance Risk Solutions – Board of Advisors
www.vigilancerisk.com
2018 – present
At Vigilance Risk Solutions (VRS), we are a trusted team of security leaders committed to mitigating workplace violence through custom solutions that empower and increase awareness. We work to give organizations the necessary analysis, planning and training to help save lives and have peace of mind. VRS delivers industry-leading threat & vulnerability assessments, emergency operations plans and workplace security programs for corporations, insurance companies, biotechnology firms, hospitals, schools & more.
EvoNexus Fintech – Selection Committee
https://evonexus.org/apply-fintech/
2019 – present
EvoNexus, a non-profit organization, produced record results in the three quarters of 2019 of $141,000,000 of portfolio investments, following our record breaking 2018 full year results of $226,000,000. Based on the recent fundraising performance of our portfolio, 2019 is now a record year for securing long term corporate partnerships, providing financial support for SoCal’s leading technology incubator.
Eusoh Inc. – Board of Advisors
www.eusoh.com
2019 – present
Eusoh provides a SaaS platform for members to join groups on a subscription basis who share costs on-demand. Second, it creates an automated loss-pooling mechanism that sheds the expense burden associated with insurance company operations and regulatory compliance. Instead of pooling risks through an insurance company, Eusoh allows its users to directly share losses. By introducing market mechanisms into a system currently devoid of them, Eusoh is aligning incentives, creating transparency, and eliminating waste. Result: >50% savings to its members.
Jeff Teza Memberships
SanRx - Board Member
http://www.sanrx.com
2011-present, Profit
SanRx is a nutraceutical company. SanRx has developed patented, immune-boosting compounds based upon the naturally-occurring human small molecule "pterin." In 2012 SanRx created ImmunoPterin™, a potent immune boosting formulation. ImmunoPterin is the only supplement specifically designed to produce immune-boosting pterins.
NeoTech Aqua Solutions - Board member
http://www.neotechaqua.com
2005-2014, Profit
NeoTech Aqua Solutions’ designs and manufactures advanced UltraViolet technologies for water treatment in industrial and municipal applications. Top semiconductor, pharmaceutical and Municipalsuse the equipment for water disinfection. Chair of compensation committee.
Reaction Design - Board Member
http://www.reactiondesign.com
2005-2013, Profit
Reaction Design (now ANSYS) sells Simulation software for kinetic modeling of chemical reactions. The software is used in combustion, materials processing and chemical production. It's product leads the industry by combining Computational Fluid Dynamics, automatic meshing and Kinetic Chemistry. In addition, the company develops kinetic models for fuels used by most of the top 10 automobile and chemical companies, NASA and NETL. Chair of compensation committee. RD was acquired by ANSYS in Dec 2013.
Syntricity - Board Member
http://www.syntricity.com
1997-2005, Profit
Syntricity develops and supplies software (as a service) for data warehousing and statistical analysis of Semiconductor Industry yield and test data. Syntricity was an early "Cloud" company and evangelized the SaaS model with Fortune 500 technology companies in the early 2000's. It is Venture Capital backed.
Rosettanet - Board Member
http://www.rosettanet.org
2001-2002, Non-Profit
RosettaNet is a non-profit consortium aimed at establishing standard processes for the sharing of business information(B2B). RosettaNet is a consortium of major Computer and Consumer Electronics, Electronic Components, Semiconductor Manufacturing, Telecommunications and Logistics companies working to create and implement industry-wide, open e-business process standards. These standards form a common e-business language, aligning processes between supply chain partners on a global basis.
Timeline Vista - Board Member
1996-1998, Profit
Timeline Vista designed and manufactured equipment for professional sound production in filmaking. Braveheart and other movies were made with Timeline Vista equipment. The company is no longer in business.
Edge Semiconductor - Board Member
http://www.semtech.com/
1995-1998, Profit
Edge was a leading supplier of high performance pin electronics to top tier semiconductor ATE companies. Edge was acquired by Semtech in 1998.
Calvin Chen Memberships
Carlsmed, Inc. - Board Director 2020 - Present, Profit A Cove Fund II portfolio company, Carlsmed is a medical device company developing patient specific spinal implants for major spine deformities.
ECFX, Inc. - Board Director 2020 - Present, Profit ECFX, Inc. is a Cove Fund II portfolio company and tech startup developing innovative software solutions to address unmet automation needs in the legal industry to save time, reduce costs, mitigate risks, and improve efficiency.
SoCalBio - Innovation Catalyst Committee Member 2019 - Present, Non-profit Southern California Biomedical Council (SoCalBio) is a nonprofit, member-supported trade association that serves the biotech, med tech, IVD and digital health communities in the six counties that comprise the Greater Los Angeles region (Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Riverside, and San Bernardino).
Gary Hultquist Memberships
Kinder-Morgan, Inc. - Board member and Member of the Compensation and Environmental Committees 2014 - Present, Profit
Resolute Energy, Inc. - Board member, Chair of Compensation Committee, and Member of Audit Committee 2014 - 2019, Profit
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners - Chair of Compensation Committee and Chair of Special Committee of Independent Directors 1999 - 2014, Profit
Rodel, Inc. - Board member 1997 - 2001, Profit