Samir Kaul

Samir is a Founding Partner and Managing Director at Khosla Ventures, where his interests lie in health, sustainability, food, and advanced technology. He led the firm’s investments in multiple companies that have had successful exits via IPOs or acquisitions including Vicarious Surgical (NYS: RBOT), View (NAS: VIEW), Guardant Health (NAS: GH), Nutanix (NAS: NTNX), Oscar (NYS: OSCR), Quantumscape (NYS: QS), Granular (DuPont), SLD (Kyocera), NanoH2O (LG Chem), Iora Health (One Medical) and Raxium (Google). In addition, he has led investments in Impossible Foods, Mojo Vision, Primer, OpenStore, Connie Health, Statespace, Varda Space Industries, Rightway Health, Mirvie and Ultima Genomics, among others.

Previously, Samir spent five years at Flagship Ventures, where he started and invested in early stage biotech companies. While there, he helped co-found Helicos BioSciences with Stanford’s Stan Lapidus and Steve Quake, which was a leader in developing single-molecule sequencing instruments to revolutionize personalized medicine. He was also founding CEO of Codon Devices, for which he raised Series A financing, built the technical and advisory teams, and booked significant revenue in the company’s first year of operation. His other investments include Epitome (Millipore), LS9 (Renewable Energy Group) and Morphotek (Eisai).

Previously, Samir led the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative at Craig Venter’s Institute for Genomic Research. Under his direction, the cost-efficient project was completed early and led to publication in the December 2000 issue of Nature.

Active in philanthropy, Samir is a long-time member of the leadership committee of the Tipping Point Community. He is also a board member of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and on the board of trustees for the US Ski and Snowboard Association.

  • 7
    Papers published, most on sequencing the Arabidopsis thaliana
  • 2,774
    Citations
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Future of Britain: How Will Technology Help Fight Climate Change?
Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
Cutting the 1st and Largest Check into OpenAI; Assessing Generative AI Moats, Monopolies, and Market Opportunities; and Why Now is the Right Time for ClimateTech
The Full Ratchet
Inside VC: Samir Kaul of Khosla Ventures on Evaluating and Managing Risk in 2023
GEN