Mike Carusi

General Partner, Lightstone Ventures

Mike is a General Partner and Team Leader of Lightstone Ventures (LSV) and focuses on investments in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors. He is based in the firm’s Menlo Park, CA office, where he also serves as a General Partner at Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV). His representative investments include Altura Medical (acquired by Lombard), Ardian (acquired by Medtronic), EndoGastric Solutions, Holaira, MicroVention (acquired by Terumo), Plexxikon (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo), PowerVision, Second Genome and Willow.

Featured on the Forbes Midas List of top technology and life science investors, Mike is a recognized thought leader in the industry and a frequent speaker at healthcare conferences. He serves as a Lecturer at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College where he also sits on the Tuck MBA Advisory Board. In addition, Mike is a Director on the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Board of Directors where he is active in helping to shape policy affecting both innovation and healthcare. Lastly, Mike has been heavily involved with several programs at Stanford University including the Stanford Biodesign Program and, more recently, the Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Research and Education (Spectrum) where he currently serves as a Member of the Oversight Committee.

Earlier in his career, Mike served as the Director of Business Development for Inhale Therapeutic Systems (now Nektar Therapeutics, NASDAQ: NKTR), a venture-backed pulmonary drug delivery company that went public in 1994. At Inhale, Mike led partnering activities with a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Mike also was a Principal at The Wilkerson Group, a leading management consulting firm focused exclusively on healthcare. At The Wilkerson Group, Mike helped establish the firm’s offices in London and San Francisco.


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