Masashi Kiyomine
Managing Partner
Superpower: Investment & Logic
Masashi is the Founder & Managing Partner at Kicker Ventures and a veteran healthcare venture capitalist. With more than 18 years of early stage investments in Digital Health, Medical Devices, Biopharma and Healthcare Services covering the US, EU, Israel and Asia, he brings a strategic vision to Kicker grounded in breadth of experience and knowledge of this field.
Prior to founding Kicker Ventures, Masashi spent 13 years at Mitsui Global Investment and served as the Head of Global Life Sciences Venture Investment. Masashi has an appointment as a Specially Appointed Professor (Visitor) at Tohoku University and advises several healthcare and innovation programs, including Innohub by METI and AMDAP by Tokyo. Masashi is a columnist at Nikkei Beyond Health and holds a dual BA in Engineering and Asian Studies from Dartmouth College.
An avid beer enthusiast, Masashi is a co-owner of Wursthall, a California take on the German Beerhall in San Mateo.
Masashi has served as board member and/or observer of more than a dozen healthcare companies, and currently serves as a board observer for Swing Therapeutics and CareX.ai.
Tomoko Ishikura
Managing Partner
Superpower: Connection & Cross-Cultural Partnerships
Tomoko is a Managing Partner at Kicker Ventures. She specializes in cross-cultural communications and partnerships, and leads the I/O and Global Fit Programs at Kicker. She mentors global entrepreneurs and is especially skilled at creating impactful connections and providing thoughtful proactive support.
Before founding Kicker Ventures, Tomoko served as Business Development Advisor to Nipro, a global medical device company. In the past, she worked for Axios International in France, UNICEF in Rwanda, PwC's PRTM and Aqumen Biopharmaceutical—a biotech startup in Japan. In addition to her role at Kicker Ventures, Tomoko teaches meditation classes in San Francisco and brings thoughtful and practical approaches back to her work. Tomoko is a pharmacist by training and holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Devang Thakor
Advisor
Superpower: Science
Devang is a biopharma executive, scientist, patent attorney and corporate attorney. Through a boutique consultancy, he provides part-time non-legal scientific, strategic and business advisory to select companies and organizations.
He was previously a primary examiner at the US Patent and Trademark Office and a researcher at Harvard Medical School, Kyoto University and UCLA, where he developed nucleic acid medicine, regenerative medicine and biomaterials technologies. He received his PhD and MS in Biomedical Engineering, as well as BS in Mathematics/Applied Science and Psychobiology from UCLA. He received his JD, with High Tech Law Certificate with corporate specialization and honors from Santa Clara University.
Samantha Young
Advisor
Superpower: Finance
Samantha is a strategic finance leader with broad experience in the healthcare space. She currently serves as Chief Financial Officer for Bicycle Health, a Series B telemedicine startup focussed on serving patients with opioid use disorder, which is backed by Questa Capital, Frist Cressey Ventures, Interalpen Partners and City Light Capital.
Samantha brings financial reporting, FP&A, M&A, investor relations, fundraising and commercial expertise from her roles at Cerebral, CloudCath, Medtronic, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Lighthouse Capital Partners. She holds a BS in Accounting from the University of Oregon, an MBA from the The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and is a CPA (inactive) in the State of California.
Swati Reichmuth
Advisor
Superpower: Operations, Finance & Strategy
Swati is an Operating Executive focused on scaling companies in hyper growth. At BrightInsight, she joined as employee number 10 and has scaled the company to over 400 people from Seed to Series C. She built key corporate functions including Professional Services, Maintenance and Support, had P&L responsibilities, launched international operations in the EU and India, diversified the financial strategy and more. Currently Swati is the SVP of Corporate Strategy, Operations and Finance.
Before joining BrightInsight, Swati was head of Business Operations at the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center’s Digital Health team. As an Engagement Manager at Deloitte Consulting, Swati specialized in strategy and operations. Swati’s career began in Silicon Valley at Cisco, launching flagship products and delivering on international business transformations. Swati is passionate about building the startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem and is an advisor to early-stage startups and venture funds. Swati holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering also from UC Berkeley.
Jessica Chao
Advisor
Superpower: Investment & Hospital Integration
Jessica is a healthcare entrepreneur, investor and complex care delivery system expert with more than 15 years of experience. She is a venture partner at Silicon Valley Latam Capital, and visiting partner at Iterative VC accelerator. Jessica studied pharmacy, pharmacoeconomics and health system administration at the University of Washington, where she got her Pharm D. She completed her residency at Johns Hopkins Medicine and got an MBA in Health Services Management from Johns Hopkins University.
Jessica co-founded a venture-backed consumer health information company, and led product design in various digital health companies. As director of the UCSF Clinical Innovation Center, she heads up new initiatives such as new care models that create both ROI for the health system as well as for our patients. Jessica also works closely with faculty to accelerate discovery, conduct service design research and product development through industry partnerships.
Julia Coelho
Advisor
Superpower: Product, Scale Strategy & Fundraising
Julia has a 20-year track record of building high impact businesses around cutting-edge healthcare products at the confluence of patient unmet needs and technology, including AI/ML. Julia is currently the Chief Business Officer at Quantum Insights, a company revolutionizing biomarker discovery. Recently, Julia was the Chief Commercial Officer at Unlearn.ai, which uses the power of AI/ML data predictions to design innovative clinical trials.
Previously, Julia served as Vice President of Corporate Development at CardioDx, leading market expansion and operational initiatives. At Carl Zeiss Meditec, Julia launched imaging+data diagnostics aimed at early detection of eye diseases. Earlier in her career, Julia worked at Abbott Vascular, launching five medical devices. At the start of her career, Julia worked in investing at Agência de Inovação in Portugal, launching its first seed fund. Julia has advised healthtech and diagnostic startups on fundraising, product, go-to-market and scale strategies. Julia holds a MBA from INSEAD and an MS in Chemical Engineering from University of Porto, Portugal.
Thomas Kim MD
Advisor
Superpower: Medical Application
Dr. Kim is a board-certified emergency medicine physician based in Reno, Nevada. He completed residency training in emergency medicine at UCSF Fresno. He is currently a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine and an instructor for Tahoe Wilderness Medicine, an adventure travel organization training healthcare professionals in wilderness medicine.
Tapping into his experience in medicine, practiced resourcefulness in the ER and in the mountains, and his background in engineering and art, he is serving as an Advisor in Residence with Kicker Ventures to provide a distinct perspective on potential investments and to help shape the future of healthcare.
Eric Johnston
Advisor
Superpower: Finance & Strategy
Eric is an executive, investor and startup advisor with more than a decade of experience in finance and tech. Currently, Eric is Head of Finance at Medallion, a Series C stage healthtech startup focused on provider credentialing and administrative services.
Prior to Medallion, Eric held several other investing and operating roles, including time spent as an early stage venture investor at Indeed and as Senior Director of Finance, Strategy & Analytics at Hired. Eric began his career in investment banking at KeyBanc Capital Markets after graduating with a BS in Finance and Economics from Northeastern University. He is based in San Francisco.
Dan Ahern
Advisor
Superpower: Communication & Storytelling
Dan is a marketing professional with more than 20 years of experience creating targeted communications for executives and global business. He is passionate about compelling marketing and creative storytelling in written, video and live, staged formats. He is based in San Francisco. Dan has helped numerous CEOs and senior executives to conceive, produce, rehearse and deliver keynote and staged presentations at industry conferences or internal employee, press and investor meetings. Large, multi-national companies like Autodesk, ABB and Ellucian and small startups have relied on Dan’s expertise for marketing and employee and investor messaging.
Dan has worked with both professional and non-professional lecturers, including John Cleese, Sir Ken Robinson, Louise Leakey, Jon Landau and more. Dan has an extensive track record designing and producing staged keynotes, TED-like speaker events and high-end video production. For many years, Dan has volunteered with Dr. Brian Fisher at the California Academy of Sciences. In recognition of his many contributions, a newly discovered species of Madagascar ant, Tetramorium Aherni, was named in Dan’s honor.
Hiroshi Otake MD
Advisor
Superpower: Critical thinking & Clinical operations
Hiro is a board-certified Anesthesiologist and Critical care physician with more than 20 years of experience, who has practiced in Japan, the US and Australia. He is an expert in clinical implementation of tele-medicine and digital health. Hiro served as Vice President of Showa University Hospital and as a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology. There, he launched the first Asian tele-ICU program, which connects 100 ICU beds in four hospitals and conducts machine learning analysis to estimate future vital signs of critical care patients.
Hiro worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, engaging in projects such as developing the marketing strategy of new drugs for pharmaceutical companies, standardizing the drug inspection processes for PMDA and supervising municipal governments to build local policy to improve efficiency of community care. He holds an MD from University of Tokyo, an MBA from University of Chicago and an MS in Clinical Informatics Management from Stanford University.
Gregg Shibata
Advisor
Superpower: Health plan sherpa
Gregg is a healthcare veteran with unique experiences and expertise—particularly in understanding and navigating the payer channel and landscape. He currently leads the strategic venture investment program for Blue Shield of California, building collaborative and commercial partnerships between internal business stakeholders and innovative startups. As an investor, the program has $150AUM between funds and direct investments. As a partnership enabler, he curates new opportunities and accelerates healthcare transformation for Blue Shield of California’s 4.9M members.
Previously, Gregg was a market development executive for an IBX/Comcast joint venture—developing the payor strategy for new consumer engagement products and services. Prior to that, he was a leader at Echo Health Ventures, shaping and executing a new model for strategic corporate venture investment and partnership. He also implemented value-based care programs for Cambia Health Solutions. Gregg graduated from UC Berkeley and spent four years teaching English in Kitadaito, Okinawa, Japan.
Ethan Goh MD
Advisor (Former Fellow)
Superpower: Organization
Dr. Ethan Goh is an experienced healthcare executive with a background in informatics, digital health transformation, and strategic innovation. Through his role as a Stanford healthcare AI researcher, he has successfully led multi-site, grant-funded studies on Large Language Models within healthcare.
Prior to Stanford, he was an Internal Medicine clinician, startup founder and technology consultant, working with partners like Google, OpenAI, Roche, IDEO, the NHS, and Stanford Medicine in the development and validation of digital health products and AI technology. He holds an MD from Imperial College School of Medicine, London, and a Masters in Clinical Informatics and Management from Stanford University. Ethan was a Fellow at Kicker Ventures from 2021 to 2022
Tamay Aykut
Advisor
Superpower: AI Innovation
Tamay received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Munich in 2019, where he was honored with the Nokia Bell Lab’s Best Student Award and the Kurt-Fischer Doctorate Award. He was selected for the Junior Research Group Program at the Max Planck Center for Visual Computing and Communication at Stanford University, becoming the youngest visiting assistant professor since 2002. His work includes significant contributions to peer-reviewed publications.
In 2020, Tamay co-founded our portfolio company CareX.ai as CTO. He served on the AI Subcommittee at Harvard University's Wyss Institute from 2021 to 2022 and was CTO at Snowcrash, where he spearheaded a team in building an AI/Blockchain tech platform vetted by Sony Music, Universal Studios, and NatGeo (Disney). In 2022, Tamay founded Sureel Inc., a venture at the forefront of explainable AI technology, distinguished by four patents pending and his contributions to research papers, showcasing his ongoing dedication to AI innovation.
Tamay is passionate about staying active, immersing himself in reading, and advancing technology to create meaningful impact.
Liz Krymalowski
Fellow
Superpower: Building Meaningful Connections
Liz is passionate about harnessing data and connecting systems to bridge gaps in healthcare access, improve quality, and empower patients.
Prior to receiving her MBA from INSEAD, Liz worked in the UK as Head of Digital Strategy for NHS England and led the Primary Care Innovation Program for the Royal College of General Practitioners. In these roles, she worked closely with clinicians, academics, patients, and policy makers to build and implement nation-wide digital and tech programs. Liz also played a key role in shaping the UK's digital health strategy, contributing to the Secretary of State's Plan for Digital Health and Social Care.
Her commitment extends beyond established institutions; Liz actively supports healthcare start-ups and scale-ups as an entrepreneur-in-residence, advisor, and Fellow for organizations like Zinc VC.
Justyn Myers
Designer & Editor
Superpower: Branding and Storytelling
Justyn is a freelance creative, specializing in graphic design, writing & editing, and brand development. He has worked with a wide variety of small businesses and companies—from wine bars, to engineering consultancies, to professional coaches, and beyond—helping them share their unique stories and connect with their customers. Justyn designed and built the Kicker Ventures website, our quarterly newsletter, and he continues to help us with content and marketing projects.
Justyn holds a BS in Journalism and Mass Communications from San Jose State University. He spends most of his free time collecting records and DJing.