2019-07

When Scott Kim (MBA ’11) was undergoing grueling and lengthy rehabilitation after childhood surgery for spina bifida, little did he know that years later he’d be heading Neofect, a med-tech startup that brings game-based physiotherapy to millions of patients worldwide. What launched Kim on an entrepreneurial career path was a class taught by Darden Professor Saras Sarasvathy and a serendipitous encounter with a fellow Korean-born Darden student Hoyoung Ban, whose family members had struggled with stroke recovery. Inspired by Sarasvathy, Kim and Ban set out to revolutionize what they saw as an archaic approach to physiotherapy. In 2010, they launched Neofect, which has since raised $17 million in a Korean IPO. Hear how Neofect built a global market for engaging computer games, which combine artificial intelligence and virtual reality to help stroke survivors and people with spinal cord injuries recover.

After three years in a corporate finance leadership program at Johnson & Johnson, Erik Breuhaus (MBA '14) knew that he wanted to work at a startup. He joined one while he was a second-year student at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and he never looked back. Hear how his experience at multiple startups in a variety of industries, where he handled finance, operations, business development, recruiting and marketing, prepared Breuhaus for his role as co-founder and CFO of cybersecurity company CounterFlow AI.

Nick Moran (MBA ’08) cut his teeth sourcing and vetting promising technologies while working on mergers and acquisitions at Danaher Corporation. He also developed one of the most successful products in Danaher’s history—an IoT solution with an innovative method for testing compounds in drinking water. Hear how Moran became a successful angel investor and venture capitalist, with a little help from a popular VC podcast The Full Ratchet, which he launched in 2014.