Robin Bellas

Partner

Robin is a General Partner of Morgenthaler Ventures and led the Firm’s transition to a meritocracy as the Managing Partner.  Robin joined Morgenthaler after a decade as an operating executive in the life science industry, and has directed the exits of more than two-dozen Morgenthaler companies with a combined value of over $11 billion. He is also a Special Partner in the Lightstone Ventures funds.

Robin formed Morgenthaler’s Life Science team in 2001 and incubated medical device companies IVS and Ensure Medical, followed by The Foundry and ForSight Labs. He served as a Director of Ardian, Cabochon Aesthetics, and Miramar, as well as all of the ForSight Vision companies. At The Foundry, Medtronic acquired Ardian in 2011 for $800 million, Ulthera acquired Cabochon and Miramar became a public company (OTC: MRLB).  ForSight Labs had an eventful year in 2016: Novartis/Alcon acquired Transcend Medical in March for $740 million, Allergan acquired ForSight Vision5 in September, and Roche/Genentech acquired ForSight Vision4 in December.

Robin’s earlier exits include Arbor Health Care (AHCC) (acquired by Extendicare), Athena Neurosciences (ATHN) (acquired by Elan), CardioThoracic Systems (CTSI) (acquired by Guidant), CareMedic Systems (acquired by UnitedHealth), Embol-X (acquired by Edwards), Ensure Medical (acquired by J&J), Executone (XTON), ForSight Vision2 (acquired by QLT), Integrated Vascular Systems (acquired by Abbott Labs), IPC The Hospitalist Company (IPCM), The Liposome Company (LIPO) (acquired by Élan), Managed Health Network (acquired by Foundation Health), Medaphis (MEDA) (acquired by Per-Se), National Medical Diagnostics (acquired by GE Medical), Perclose (PERC) (acquired by Abbott Labs), Sequana Therapeutics (SQNA) (acquired by Arris Pharmaceuticals), Surgical Health (acquired by HealthSouth), Verifone (VFIC) (acquired by Hewlett Packard), Vical (VICL), and Xtent (XTNT) (acquired by Biosensors).

Robin is a past Director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC) and the Stanford Business School Trust, and is currently a director of the Naval Academy Foundation. Before Stanford, Robin served on nuclear fast attack and ballistic missile submarines. He received a BS in Engineering from the United States Naval Academy, is a two-time National Champion in Heavyweight Crew at Navy, and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Education:

U.S. Naval Academy (BS, Engineering); Stanford Graduate School of business (MBA)

Focus:

Life Sciences/Medical Devices/HC Services


Robin Bellas

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