Aaron Berez, MD
Co-Founder and Managing Director
Aaron is an acknowledged international thought leader in interventional radiology, and has had careers as a doctor, inventor, entrepreneur and professional investor. He was a co-founder and CEO of Chestnut Medical, where he led the development of innovative devices for Interventional Neuroradiology, including the Pipeline Embolization Device (PED). The PED received PMA approval from the FDA in April 2011 and was hailed as one of the top ten medical devices for 2012 by the Cleveland Clinic. Chestnut Medical was acquired by eV3 for more than $150 million in June 2009. Before co-founding Chestnut Medical, Dr. Berez served as the VP of Clinical Affairs at Smart Therapeutics, where he helped develop new intracranial stents devices for the treatment of aneurysms and intracranial atherosclerosis. He had previously served as the Clinical Director at Endovasix and developed novel devices for the treatment of stroke. Dr. Berez was an investor in Sapheon, where he served as a director until the company was acquired by Covidien in 2014, and was a director of C2, in which the Alembic Syndicate invested. A graduate of the Georgetown University School of Medicine, where he received his MD degree, Dr. Berez completed post-graduate training at UCSF/Mt. Zion in Internal Medicine, and Stanford University in Radiology and Neuroradiology, where he served as a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Radiology from 1997 to 2000. Dr. Berez is the founder and CEO of Alembic as well as its current portfolio companies, including Cathera (a neuro microcather company acquired by Medtronic in 2018) and Palmera (a medtech company developing a suite of tools for endovascular treatment of ischemic stroke, particularly large vessel occlusion of the intracranial vessels). In addition to his roles at Ambix and Alembic, Dr. Berez serves on the boards of directors of Companion Medical (an Ambix investment since acquired by Medtronic), Avails Medical, CorVista, ABK Biomedical and Sonitus China. Aaron has an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in addition to his Georgetown medical degree.
Peter Townshend
Co-Founder and Managing Director
Peter Townshend, is a lawyer, business advisor, entrepreneur, professional investor and a leading authority on startups, angel and venture capital, commercial transactions and mergers and acquisitions. Peter has been advising life science startups since 1996. He launched Townshend Venture Advisors, LLP (“TVA”) in 2017 after a long career as a senior partner for various technology law firms in Silicon Valley and San Diego, most recently Perkins Coie LLP. TVA is a new type of business advisory and law firm focused exclusively on supporting the business and legal needs of high growth technology companies, with an emphasis on funding and growth strategies. Peter’s career has included working with a number of life science companies, including Atrionix (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), Appriva Medical (acquired by ev3), Adeza Biomedical (IPO), Abunda Nutrition (acquired by Evolva), MitraLife (acquired by ev3), Chestnut Medical (acquired by ev3), ConforMIS (IPO), Cathera (acquired by Medtronic), Companion Medical (acquired by Medtronic) and existing startups Avails Medical, ThrombX Medical, Luna Health, Alembic, Juva Health and all of Alembic’s portfolio companies including Palmera, and acting as lead investor counsel for a syndicate of investors in ABK Biomedical. Peter has assisted his clients in raising more than $2 billion in private and public financing. Peter has also helped launch a string of successful tech startups including eBay, Interwoven, Portable Software and Alliance Semiconductor. He helped Napster and Facebook founder Sean Parker form Plaxo in 2002, then helped Plaxo raise venture financing from Sequoia Capital, Globespan Capital and others, close its partnership with AOL and sell to Comcast in 2008. Peter has since worked with a number of successful Bay Area technology startups including BrightRoll (acquired by Yahoo), HipChat (acquired by Atlassian), Meebo (acquired by Google), Dandelion Chocolate, Podhero, Chroma Labs (acquired by Twitter), Equilibrium Energy, Shop My Porch, Shipshape, Pipedream and Shaped.ai. Peter’s expertise includes a number of areas where he provides advice and assistance to Ambix portfolio companies, including angel, venture capital and other private equity financings; convertible equity, SAFE and other types of convertible instruments; mergers, asset sales and acquisitions; public offerings; corporate governance; licensing, distribution, development, manufacturing, co-marketing and other commercial technology transactions; startup entity formation and organization; complex entity and SPV structuring; advisor, consultant and executive compensation; and venture capital, incubator and private equity fund formation. Peter has lectured at UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UCLA, University of Wisconsin, Santa Clara University and San Jose State University, and has been quoted in numerous publications such as the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, TheDeal.com, Inc.com, Entrepreneur Magazine, Washington Post and Reuters. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation and President of the board of the Country Montessori School of Poway. He was named one of San Diego’s 500 most influential people in 2020 and 2021 by the San Diego Business Journal. Peter has a BA in English and Economics from Yale University, a JD from the UC Berkeley School of Law and an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.