Convergent Ventures Promotes Mr. Nima Shiva to Managing Director.LOS ANGELES Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. -- Convergent Ventures, a seed-stage venture investment and development company focused on life sciences and materials sciences, announced today that Mr. Nima Shiva has been promoted to Managing Director. Previously, Mr. Shiva was a Principal on Convergent's management team. "Time and again, Nima has demonstrated a special talent for identifying new investment and business development opportunities for Convergent and our portfolio companies," said Mr. Kenneth C. Aldrich, a co-founder of Convergent and veteran member the Tech Coast Angels, the Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, angel investment group. "Since signing on with our team as a new Associate in 1998, Nima has excelled in every situation and demonstrated the kind of entrepreneurial instinct and commitment to building investor value that are essential to successful early-stage venture investing venture investing The acquiring of a stake in a start-up company by a brokerage firm or analyst by obtaining discounted, pre-IPO shares. Critics claim venture investing causes analysts to have a vested interest in seeing a stock appreciate in value and so ," said Mr. Aldrich. Mr. Shiva played a leading role in creating the investment opportunity and business plan for Convergent's first portfolio company, Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Neurion is a drug discovery company co-founded in 2002 by Convergent and two leading scientists at the California Institute of Technology California Institute of Technology, at Pasadena, Calif.; originally for men, became coeducational in 1970; founded 1891 as Throop Polytechnic Institute; called Throop College of Technology, 1913–20. . Mr. Shiva was part of the start-up management team at Neurion, and currently serves as its Vice President of Strategic Development. As part of Convergent's investment and business model, Convergent team members, all of whom have significant operating and research experience in the pharmaceutical, chemicals, biotechnology and medical technology industries, typically assume early, hands-on management roles in the venture firm's portfolio companies. Mr. Shiva also played a central role in the founding and early development of ORFID Corporation, a spin-out from the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. that Convergent started, along with a UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX professor and co-investor Precision Dynamics Corporation. ORFID is commercializing a polymer-based organic transistor for use in thin-film flat-panel displays and other applications. Mr. Shiva has worked in the biotechnology and life science instrumentation industries for more than 14 years, with a business and scientific focus in drug discovery and, more recently, advanced materials Advanced Materials is a leading peer-reviewed materials science journal published every two weeks. Advanced Materials includes Communications, Reviews, and Feature Articles from the cutting edge of materials science, including topics in chemistry, physics, . He has held complementary functions in industry, originally as a research scientist, and later in business development and equity research. At Convergent Management, Inc., an affiliate of Convergent Ventures, he consulted with over 20 bioscience companies. Previously, he served as an equity research associate in biotechnology and medical devices at Wedbush Morgan Securities. Mr. Shiva held research and technical positions at UCSD UCSD University of California, San Diego (La Jolla, California) UCSD User Centered System Design UCSD Urbana-Champaign Sanitary District (Illinois) UCSD Ultra Cool Sexy Dudes and Sequana Therapeutics. Mr. Shiva holds an M.B.A. from the Marshall School of Business The Marshall School of Business (also known as USC Marshall School of Business) is the business school at the University of Southern California. It is the largest of USC's 17 professional schools. The current Dean is James G. Ellis. at USC An abbreviation for U.S. Code. and received his undergraduate training in physiology and neuroscience at UCSD. About Convergent Ventures Convergent Ventures is a venture investment and development company whose goal is to create, fund and manage new life science and materials science companies in close collaboration with leading scientists from major academic and biomedical research institutions in Los Angeles area. Convergent's debut fund, now referred to as CV-I, includes portfolio companies ORFID Corporation and Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Convergent Ventures takes a unique approach to building new companies by combining multidisciplinary technical expertise, years of commercial operating experience, and a "hands-on" management style that helps to ensure the early success of its portfolio companies. For more information, visit www.convergentventures.com. |
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