Rick is responsible for the overall direction and management of Comprehend Systems. In 2012, Rick was named to the PharmaVOICE 100, which recognizes the 100 most influential people in the life sciences industry.

Prior to Comprehend Systems, Rick spent nearly a decade developing clinical analytics tools, including tools used by the FDA and top pharmaceutical companies, at companies including Integrated Clinical Systems, where he led the design and implementation of several major new features.

Rick holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Jud is responsible for the overall product and technical direction of Comprehend Systems’ products.

Prior to Comprehend Systems, Jud was the Chief Technology Officer of an online industrial electronics distributor, where he designed and delivered software systems involving large datasets with complex, multi-tier interactions. Implementation of these systems spanned end-user data presentation down to micro-controller programming for data acquisition. Prior to that, as a consultant, Jud successfully executed difficult projects within the pharmaceutical industry, including the integration of multiple EDC systems to facilitate reporting.

Jud holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Will is Director of Customer Solutions and is responsible for ensuring customers’ success.  Previously, he worked at Netflix, Facebook and Blackhawk Network, where he led analytics and business intelligence teams.  Will also brings years of expereince from MicroStrategy Professional Service and successfully delivered BI solutions to 20+ Fortune 500 customers.  In addition to enterprise BI, Will is also interested in consumer web and founded a trip planning service for travelers to plan trips and discover things to do.

Will holds a BS and MS in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, Pennsylania.

Arthur comes to Comprehend after plying a variety of startups in internet, biomedical and network applications. He is a functional programming enthusiast who’s interested in data visualization and statistics, and has had additional professional experience in machine learning and image processing.

Rich brings more than 35 years of experience driving research and development of large-scale clinical trials IT systems at companies like Covance, Inc., Integrated Clinical Systems and Teva Pharmaceuticals. Enz was also responsible for creating and validating one of the industry’s first clinical data management systems, Sherlock, while at Covance.

Prior to joining Comprehend, Enz served as associate director of application programming environment at Teva’s Global Branded Products division, where he was responsible for SAS administration and maintaining a validated SAS programming environment. Previously, Enz developed software at Integrated Clinical Systems. Enz also spent 15 years at contract research organization Covance, where, as senior director of clinical information technology, he provided technical oversight and architectural guidance to clinical IT staff and project teams. He also developed an international distributed database system at CIBA-Geigy, which is now part of Novartis.

Michael is a well-rounded software engineer who co-founded a Y Combinator-backed startup and made software for the hedge fund industry before joining Comprehend. He is experienced in the fields of computer security, natural language processing, and machine learning. Michael holds a bachelor’s in Computer Science from Brandeis University. He speaks five languages and enjoys sculpting cats.

Neil joined Comprehend with an obsession for finding candidates for disruptive technologies. He comes to the team from a Sales & Marketing background in health analytics and an understanding of the medical regulatory landscape. He has served early roles in evolving sales teams – both before and after major shifts in product and strategy. During these rapidly changing periods, Neil can find the balance between product capabilities, customer demands, and whether opportunities exist to build a bridge between the two.

Marc L. Abramowitz is a private investor in operating companies, real estate and venture capital based in Palo Alto, California. Mr. Abramowitz also has extensive experience in the health care services and device industry and has invested in drug development and licensing opportunities. Mr. Abramowitz has served on several community boards and committees and serves on the Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution. Mr. Abramowitz holds an A.B. from the University of California at Berkeley, a J.D. from Harvard, and an M.S. from Stanford.

Lee Black is currently the Global Director of Solution Architecture for Motorola’s Managed Services Division, where he leads a team focused on development of next generation enterprise and government services. He has extensive experience in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business models. Prior to Motorola, Black was a founding member of Wireless Valley Communications, Inc. – sold to Motorola in 2006. Prior to Wireless Valley, Black co-founded NeuEdge Technologies. He holds a BS in computer science and mathematics from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg.

Kirill Sheynkman is Managing Director of RTP Ventures — U.S. representative of the $750M ru-Net Holdings. Focused on developing all aspects of the firms investment strategy in the United States, building an investment portfolio of Software, Cloud, SaaS, and Enterprise Infrastructure companies. Investing in companies that bring innovative technologies to big markets and are led by exceptionally smart founding teams. Kirill is a three-time founder and CEO of software companies including Plumtree Software and Elastra.

Garry Tan is a designer/engineer. He graduated from Stanford in Computer Systems Engineering. He was a PM for Windows Mobile at Microsoft, and an early design/engineering lead Palantir. In 2008, he cofounded Posterous.com and built it to a top 250 website. He is now a venture partner helping hundreds of startups build world-class user experiences with leading seed stage fund Y Combinator.

Y Combinator is a venture fund which focuses on seed investments to startup companies. It offers financing as well as business consulting along with other opportunities to 2-4 person companies looking to take an idea to a product. It has been called “the most prestigious program for budding digital entrepreneurs” by Wired magazine.

Start Fund, created in January 2011, is a joint venture between Yuri Milner and SV Angel. The fund was created to invest in Y Combinator startups and made its first set of investments in January 2011.

Yuri is a Russian entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He founded investment firms Digital Sky Technologies (DST), now called Mail.ru Group and DST Global. Fortune magazine’s list of the world’s fifty most prominent business people in 2010 placed Milner at 46th place. In 2010 Milner was recognized by Russian business magazine Vedomosti as “Businessman of the Year”. In 2012 he was included in the 50 Most Influential list of Bloomberg Markets Magazine.

With over $4 billion under management since 1976, Menlo Ventures are one of the largest technology venture funds in the world; the kind of partner you want when seeking to change the world. Just as important as their financial strength is their personal commitment to their entrepreneurs. They view themselves as true partners with shared goals and visions and they are active board members in almost every portfolio company.

Aaron Levie co-founded Box with friend and Box CFO Dylan Smith in 2005. The Box mission is to provide businesses and individuals with the simplest solution to share, access and manage their information. Aaron is the visionary behind Box’s product and platform strategy, which is focused on incorporating the best of traditional content management with an easy to use user experience suited to the way people collaborate and work today. Box is one of the fastest growing companies in enterprise software, used by more than 11 million individuals and 120,000 businesses worldwide.

Farzad Nazem joined Yahoo in early 1996 as senior vice president of engineering and surfing and was named Chief Technical Officer in January 1997. In that position he was responsible for overseeing all areas of engineering, including site operations and product development. Nazem has more than 18 years of experience in executive and technical positions. Prior to Yahoo, he was vice president of Oracle Corporation’s Media and Web Server Division. Previously, Nazem held various technical positions for SYDIS, Inc. and Rolm Corporation. He holds a B.S. degree in Computer Science from California Polytechnic State University.

Founder of Life Science Angel Network – professionally managed group of angels investing in healthcare.
Have been on all sides of medical device development: as a practicing physician, medical director of Boston Scientific, equity analyst at Lehman Brothers and a VC (for last 6 years).

Paul Buchheit co-founded social network aggregator FriendFeed, along with three other former Google employees. He is also an investor in FriendFeed and participated in a $5 million Series A round in February 2008.

He was the 23rd employee at Google, where he created Gmail and implemented many of its innovative features. He developed the original prototype of Google AdSense, and was responsible for Google’s famous “Don’t be evil” motto in a meeting.

Harj is a partner at Y Combinator. Previously founder of Auctomatic, a YC funded company acquired by Live Current Media.

Alexis Ohanian is a startup founder and investor in Brooklyn, NY.

After graduating from UVA in 2005, Alexis co-founded reddit with Steve Huffman, which has become one of the most popular social news websites online.

Crosslink Capital is a leading stage-independent venture capital and growth equity firm with over $1.8 billion in assets. Crosslink, which traces its roots back to 1989, was among the first and largest investment firms in the U.S. to integrate public and private growth/technology investing in three families of funds: venture capital funds, long/short hedge funds and a unique hybrid crossover fund. This strategy allows Crosslink to partner with its portfolio companies on a long-term basis.

Easton Capital Investment Group manages approximately $200 million on behalf of a number of significant institutional investors in its three funds, Easton Capital Partners, L.P., Easton Hunt Capital Partners, L.P. and Easton Hunt New York LP. Easton makes investments ranging in size from $2 million to $7.5 million and has strategic co-investment relationships with many of its institutional investors which allow it to participate in larger initial and follow-on rounds of funding. Easton has offices in New York and Florida.