It is always nice to ring the bell when a great person joins our investment team – this time we get to ring the bell twice.
Venture capital firms simply do not need to hire a lot of people. While we will make at least several dozen investment decisions together over the course of a fund, we might only make a handful of hiring decisions. Each addition to the team is important and well-considered with an extensive interview process and a long courtship. Notwithstanding that, recruiting Uma Veerappan and Kelly Scherrer were easy decisions and are two more important pieces to the puzzle.
Uma is well-known to the Flare Capital team. While earning her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business last year, she was a Flare Scholar in the great Class of 2021. She did terrific work on a number of projects, including the closing of our investment in Elektra Health. As soon as we first met Uma, we knew she was special. Her passion for healthcare and deep understanding of this sector’s many complexities and nuances were immediately evident. While in business school, Uma both worked with a few healthcare technology start-ups and held roles at two venture firms.
Earlier in Uma’s career, she was a Strategy Consultant at EY with a particular focus on launching next-generation products at the intersection of healthcare and technology. Specific areas of interest included applications of artificial intelligence and surgical skills assessment. Prior to her time at EY, (Read more…)