Rattan L. Khosa SeedCon

Rattan Khosa, MBA ’79, started AMSYSCO in 1981 out of the basement of his home that he shared with his wife and young son, with lifetime savings of $44,000 and no other financing. After nearly four decades, he has grown it into a highly profitable company that provides post-tensioning systems on commercial structures, and occupies a 55,000 square foot facility; the company captures some 65% market share.

“Starting a business from scratch is like jumping off a cliff in the middle of the night while blindfolded, hoping that there is a safety net down below,” Khosa said.

“When more than 80 percent of companies fail within the first year – even those with ample funding – it’s clear that there is much more to a startup’s success than just money,” Khosa said. “I don’t simply want to provide the money for this new program; I plan to serve as a thought leader, mentor and guide for these aspiring entrepreneurs, so that my years of experience, my struggles and my successes may serve as an additional resource to help them succeed.”

“I know from personal experience that everyone needs help at some point in their lives. No one has succeeded on their own.”

Khosa is actively involved with the Polsky Center as a member of its advisory board, the Polsky Council.

Learn more about Rattan Khosa’s story.>>

As Deputy Dean, Starr oversees the Full-time, Evening, and Weekend MBA Programs, as well as the work of the Polsky Center and Rustandy Center at Booth. Prior to her role as Deputy Dean, Starr was the Executive Director of the Polsky Center, working with University of Chicago students, faculty, and staff to launch the next generation of high-impact ventures. She grew the entrepreneurship program at the University of Chicago from 2005 to 2020, and continues to champion the Center’s work today.

During Starr’s time as Executive Director at Polsky, she ran and expanded the Edward L. Kaplan New Venture Challenge (NVC), which awards over $1M in funding and services to top entrepreneurial companies each year. The NVC is ranked the #1 university accelerator program in the nation. Since 1996, the NVC has fostered more than 800 startups, with 180+ that are still in operation and growing strong, has created thousands of jobs, and has produced exits of over nearly $6 billion, including Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB) and Braintree Venmo (acquired by eBay’s PayPal for $800 million). In 2017, Starr testified before the U.S. Congress’ Committee on Small Business on the role of accelerator programs in creating new jobs and positively influencing economic development.

T​homas Elnick is a partner at Bancroft Capital Partners (BCP), a private investment company focused on building and investing in exceptional products with extraordinary people. BCP manages solely the Partners’ money and has a patient and long-term investment horizon, emphasizing a concentrated portfolio and deep involvement with management teams. Prior to BCP, he was the co-founder and co-CEO of Tegus, a leading software platform serving more than 30,000 customers including public and private market institutional investors, investment bankers, consultants, and corporations. In 2024, Tegus was acquired by AlphaSense for $930m. Elnick received his BA in Economics from Brown University. He lives with his wife and two children in Chicago. 

Michael Palmer is partner at Great Wave Ventures with a strong background in construction, real estate, and the built environment. He joined the team after serving as head of strategy and real estate at Volumetric Building Companies (’VBC”) where he oversaw the acquisition of Katerra’s assets in a bankruptcy transaction. Prior to VBC, Michael held several commercial roles within the building products divisions of Dow Chemical and DuPont followed by a role in corporate development at Sidewalk Labs. Michael holds a bachelor of architectural engineering from Penn State University and an MBA from Chicago Booth. Outside work, Michael enjoys camping, backpacking, and the outdoors.

Stefano is a vice president of Energy Capital Ventures where he is responsible for the development of investment theses and executing deal-flow.

Stefano has over 10 years of experience in the energy and utility industry, working on data analytics consulting engagements as well as energy efficiency program implementation for utilities, large energy users, state entities and federal agencies. Prior to Energy Capital Ventures, Stefano was the deal flow lead at New Stack Ventures and an associate at the G.Schultz Innovation Fund of the University of Chicago.

Before that, Stefano was a principal at the Energy Resources Center, where he launched and grew the energy efficiency group from a niche consulting shop to a tier-1 supplier for electric and natural gas utilities in the Midwest. Stefano was a member of the Board of Directors of the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance.

Stefano has both a master of science in mechanical engineering with honors and a bachelor of science-automotive engineering from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, and an MBA from Chicago Booth.

Henry leads the market intelligence function of Earth Foundry, identifying early innovation trends, evaluating the market potential of investment opportunities, and setting the fund’s investment thesis. Henry’s passion for learning new technologies and how they can be used in creating new businesses is key to this role.

Prior to joining Earth Foundry, Henry spent six years as a strategy consultant for Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in the Chicago office. Henry focused on Industrials (Chemicals / Materials, Ag) primarily working within the Corporate Development practice area (portfolio / growth strategy, M&A).

Henry received his PhD in chemistry from Northwestern University where he focused on developing theoretical techniques to accelerate development of new organic electronic materials for application in semiconductors and photovoltaics. Henry has a BA from Carleton College in mathematics and chemistry.

Brian Coe began his entrepreneurial career in 1995 as co-founder and CEO of Litholink Corporation, a CLIA laboratory with integrated clinical decision support software that grew to serve approximately 25% of the US urology market and 10% of the nephrology market with national payer coverage before its acquisition by LabCorp in 2006. At LabCorp (NYSE: LH), Brian was promoted to Senior Vice President and led the expansion of the programs to other diseases that eventually included chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, bone disease, coagulation disorders, and diabetes as the platform fully integrated into the broader organization. Litholink’s programs currently serve ~9MM pts/yr.

Brian left LabCorp to serve as co-founder and CEO of Talis Biomedical (NASDAQ:TLIS) (FKA SlipChip), a point-of-care molecular diagnostics platform for infectious disease. He led the company from conception through its IPO, led by JPM and BAML, raising approximately $500MM in equity capital over 9 years, with an additional $50MM in non-dilutive grant funding. Brian currently serves as an adjunct professor at Chicago Booth, where he previously co-created and taught Entrepreneurial Discovery course with Prof Mark Tebbe, instructs the I-Corps course at the Polsky Center, and serves as an active advisor in multiple life science start-up companies.

Hailey Lefkofsky is director of operations for neurology and psychiatry at Tempus AI, where she leads initiatives leveraging clinical and molecular data to advance personalized mental healthcare and improve patient outcomes. She holds degrees in mathematical statistics and science from the University of Michigan, where she began her career in translational oncology research.

Brad Schnitzer is the managing director for Northwestern Medicine and Techstars Healthcare Accelerator and also serves as Techstars investment director for North America. He has made over 100 investments and driven strategy for the company’s central sourcing team, all in support of Techstars’ commitment to increasing access to entrepreneurship and creating opportunities for founders to scale their companies. Brad founded Chicago Startup Week and 77 Coffees and has seen firsthand how the right support at the right time can make the difference. In parallel, he is a local angel investor and limited partner at LongJump, and a mentor at 1871, the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center and various non-profits.

Adi is the CEO and cofounder of Cofactor AI™. Before Cofactor, Adi was a research specialist at Princeton University, where he leveraged artificial intelligence and machine learning in his political science and economics research.

Allison is a partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners and has been with the firm since 2019.

Prior to HPVP, Allison ran business operations for Civis Analytics, a Chicago-based data science software startup. She also co-founded Flag Analytics, a predictive analytics company focused on public safety, and spent her early career in healthcare consulting at Accenture. Allison has led and manages HPVP’s investments in Certiverse, CoPilot, and FactoryFix, among others.

Anand Kannappan is the ceo and cofounder of Patronus AI. Patronus AI is the leading automated AI evaluation and optimization company. Their research-backed product has helped leading technology companies and enterprises like AngelList, Etsy, Bumble, Gamma, Volkswagen, and Pearson optimize and ship top-tier AI models and products. We are backed by Notable Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Datadog, Gokul Rajaram, and leading software and AI executives. Kannappan holds a bachelor’s degree in economics, computer science, and statistics from the University of Chicago.

Jack Piunti leads GTM for strategic accounts at ElevenLabs, where he focuses on enterprise AI adoption and has helped scale the voice AI research, product, and deployment company from under $70M to over $300M ARR. Prior to ElevenLabs, he spent six years at Twilio managing strategic ISV partnerships during a period of significant growth from $650M to $4.4B ARR. A Bay Area native, Jack graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in history from Centre College in Kentucky, and is now based in Indianapolis with his wife, 3 cats, 6 chickens, and countless fish.

Aaditi Tamhankar is an associate with Bluestein Ventures, where her responsibilities including engaging with startups, due diligence analysis, and supporting portfolio companies.

Prior to Bluestein, Aaditi was at Emerton, a global consulting firm, where she honed her analytical skills, working with food, energy, and infrastructure companies on applying a strategy-led approach to operating and business models. During undergrad, Aaditi held internships at Plant-Based Solutions and Ocean Hugger Foods, where she identified new market opportunities and delved into industry trends to inform growth strategy.

Aaditi graduated from Wharton with a BS in Economics, magna cum laude.

Rick Desai is a managing partner at Listen, a brand-focused venture capital firm in Chicago. At Listen, Rick leads investment strategy, sourcing, and diligence and works closely with portfolio companies on marketing and technology initiatives. Rick previously co-founded Dashfire, a startup studo that launched 40+ companies and is currently an adjunct entrepreneurship lecturer at Kellogg.

Emily Groden is the founder of Evergreen, one of America’s fastest-growing frozen breakfast companies. Emily started Evergreen in 2020 because she wanted a better breakfast for her growing family. When searching for quick and easy options for her first daughter, Emily realized that most frozen waffles were full of ingredients she couldn’t pronounce. Instead of settling, she began crafting her own waffles from real foods like fruits, veggies, and whole grains. What started as a late-night passion project turned into a mission: to make genuinely nourishing food more convenient for busy families. Five years later, Evergreen is sold in 8,000 stores nationwide, from Whole Foods and Sprouts to select Walmarts and Targets. Emily’s story has been featured by Good Morning America, The Today Show, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. Prior to founding Evergreen, Emily worked for Chef Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas as the General Counsel for The Alinea Group and Tock. Before her pivot into the hospitality industry, Emily practiced law at Kirkland & Ellis as a corporate associate focused on mergers and acquisitions. A lifelong athlete with a passion for food, Emily was a Division I swimmer and is an Ironman finisher and Boston Marathon qualifier. Emily graduated cum laude from Yale College and Harvard Law School. She currently lives in Glencoe with her husband and two daughters, Evergreen’s number one fans.

Emanuele Colonnelli is a professor of finance and entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth. He serves as board member and cochair of the Finance Sector at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), and leads the Finance and Entrepreneurship Theme at the CEPR-FCDO’s PEDL initiative. He is the codirector of Becker Friedman Institute (BFI) LATAM, a research associate at the NBER, and a research affiliate at CEPR, BREAD, and J-PAL. He is the recipient of a number of grants and awards, such as the 2023 Carlo Alberto Medal, a biennial prize given to the best Italian economist under 40.

Colonnelli’s research focuses on the intersection between finance, development, and political economy, with a special interest in high-growth entrepreneurship and the interaction between governments, firms, and investors. Specific interests include a range of topics such as venture capital and private equity, corporate governance, corruption, ESG and impact investing, public procurement, and corporate bankruptcy. He has research and work experience in several emerging economies, including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, and Vietnam and regularly conducts world-wide surveys and field experiments with entrepreneurs, firms, and investors. His research has been published in various top academic journals, such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial Economics.

Colonnelli joined Booth in 2018 as an assistant professor of finance, and from 2022 he was associate professor of finance and MV advisors faculty fellow. He was also a visiting associate professor of business administration in the entrepreneurial management unit at Harvard Business School, where he taught the MBA elective on entrepreneurial finance. At Booth, he developed and teaches the first MBA class focused on venture capital and private equity in emerging markets.

Colonnelli holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University, an MSc in economics from Bocconi University, a BSc in economics from the University of Siena, and he spent an academic year visiting Pembroke College, Oxford University.

Maria T Carmona is the founder and CEO at Kivira. An AI-powered diagnostic platform transforming how mental health disorders are identified and treated. Founded by leading clinical researchers, including a Stanford Professor and MD, as well as the president elect of the ADAA and the American College of Psychiatrists, Kivira combines standardized assessments, digital phenotyping, and machine learning to help primary care physicians and clinicians make faster, more accurate diagnoses and treatment decisions. Carmona holds an MBA from Chicago Booth.

Yosuke Suzuki is the head of strategic investment at Japan Airlines Ventures, the corporate venture capital (CVC) arm of Japan Airlines. Since March 2022, he has led the investment strategy and operations of the Japan Airlines Innovation Fund, a $70 million fund launched in 2019 in partnership with TransLink Capital.

He began his career with Japan Airlines in 2007. For over a decade, he led the financial planning & analysis (FP&A) team in the revenue management division, where he oversaw medium-to long-term revenue planning, monitored financial performance, and optimized the pricing and revenue strategies for the airline’s core business.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from Chuo University in Tokyo, Japan.

Eduardo Teixeira is a serial fintech entrepreneur and proven operator with a track record of scaling financial platforms in emerging markets. In 2015, he co-founded Noverde, a credit fintech that disrupted the brazilian lending landscape through mobile distribution, proprietary scoring and capital markets innovation. Demonstrating extreme capital efficiency, Eduardo leveraged just $1M in equity to originate over $1B in credit for 500,000 underbanked Brazilians, culminating in a $100 million acquisition in 2022 by Dotz (B3: DOTZ3).

Following the acquisition, Eduardo joined the Dotz executive team to spearhead the integration of both organizations while leading the Marketing, Product, and Engineering divisions company-wide. Under his leadership, Noverde scaled an additional 300%, driving 50% of the parent company’s consolidated P&L and architecting the broader ecosystem strategy for millions of active users.

Relocating to the United States to found Edoo AI, Eduardo is now architecting an agentic venture to solve the structural decay of unit economics in customer acquisition. Recognizing that traditional ad-spend has reached a point of diminishing returns, he is building the infrastructure to transform referrals into a high-precision performance channel. Currently in stealth, Edoo AI provides the automated execution layer for high-growth companies to reclaim their margins and own their growth.

Karthee Madasamy is the founding managing partner at MFV Partners, a Silicon Valley based, early-stage deep tech venture fund targeting technology startups disrupting traditional industries like logistics, automotive, manufacturing, and others. Karthee invests in frontier-tech startups in robotics, artificial intelligence, energy, quantum computing, and data platforms. He represents MFV Partners’ investments in PsiQuantum (Quantum Computing Hardware), Agility Robotics (Humanoid Robotics for Manufacturing), and Sun Mobility (EV Tech platform), among others.

Before MFV, Karthee spent 11 years as a corporate vice president and managing director at Qualcomm Ventures, where he invested across the US, Israel, and India. He started Qualcomm Ventures’ investment activities in both Israel and India. Some of his notable investments include Waze (acquired by Google), MapMyIndia (NSE: MAPMYINDIA), Validity Sensors (acquired by Synaptics), and BORQS (NASDAQ IPO), among others. He continues as an independent director at MapMyIndia.

Before Qualcomm Ventures, Karthee led technical and product marketing roles in three semiconductor and wireless startups in Silicon Valley, specializing in 3G, WiFi, and bluetooth.

Karthee has a bachelor’s in electronics and communication engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy in Chennai, India, and a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan. Karthee also holds an MBA from Chicago Booth. Karthee is also a Kauffman Fellow.

Nathan Arnold is the cofounder and CEO or Photon Queue. Where they develop efficient quantum memories to expedite the advancement and adoption of quantum communication, computing, and metrology technologies. Our all-optical approach to storing photonic qubits facilitates commercial deployment by offering high performance with practically useful storage times. Arnold holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Texas A&M University and a PhD in physics from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Nii is a tech investor at OUP and is passionate about investing in physical sciences and deep tech sectors. He has a wealth of experience in the semiconductor industry, having worked with Intel, Samsung, and TSMC among others. He also spent several years investing in startups in emerging markets. He holds a PhD in condensed matter physics from the University of Leeds and an MBA from The Wharton School and the Rotterdam School of Management. Nii is a former academic and was a post-doctoral fellow in physics at the University of Cambridge.

Kanav Setia is the cofounder and CEO of qBraid. qBraid is a leading cloud platform for quantum software development. Single command-line access to CPUs, GPUs, QPUs. Proven usage at the world’s top hackathons at QuantX, MIT, Stanford x Yale, and NYUAD. Begin your quantum journey, or dive deep into algorithms and integrations for financial optimization, quantum machine learning and more – all in one platform. Setia holds a bachelor of technology, space technology-aerospace engineering, with a minor in astronomy and planetary sciences from the Indian Institute of Space and Science Technolgy and a doctor of philosophy, quantum information and quantum simulation from Dartmouth College.

Jason Heltzer began his career in venture capital in 2001 and is currently a managing partner at Origin Ventures. Heltzer is a board member or observer for Tovala, Vivrelle, Prisidio, Idelic, Blackcart, and several unannounced investments.

Heltzer’s prior investments include Tock (acquired by Squarespace), Cartavi (acquired by Docusign), Base CRM (acquired by Zendesk), Brightnest (acquired by Angie’s List), Alert Logic (acquired by Welsh-Carson), and FeeFighters (acquired by Groupon). Heltzer also worked closely with TradeKing (acquired by Ally Bank). Before his venture capital career, Heltzer spent three and a half years as a software engineer and software architect for Deloitte Consulting. He also led engineering and business teams at 1stUp, a San Francisco-based startup.

Heltzer received a BS in computer science, with highest distinction, from the University of Michigan. Heltzer also received an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship, with high honors, from Chicago Booth, where he was a Siebel Scholar and Wallman Scholar. In addition to his professional responsibilities at Origin, Heltzer is an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth, where he teaches the venture capital and private equity lab class.

Jason has an interest in movies, and has watched every Best Picture movie from 1927 to present, plus about 200 documentaries. In addition, for most of his life, Jason has been addicted to video games, which is what prompted him to teach himself how to code when he was 13.

Aisling is a partner in the Thompson Hine’s New Ventures practice group. She focuses her practice on advising and representing startups and growth-stage companies in business transactional matters. Before beginning her career in business law, she was a student at IIT Chicago-Kent in the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic, which concentrates on representing entrepreneurs in transactional matters common to growth companies, including choice of entity and entity formation, contract review and drafting, corporate governance issues, review of leases, researching legal issues as appropriate, and trademark searches and filing.

Prior to joining Thompson Hine, Aisling was an associate attorney at Harper Legal, a boutique law firm based in Chicago representing emerging companies. Her experience also encompasses handling matters associated with commercial litigation, election law, nonprofit management and compliance.