Brent Ahrens

Biography

 " His term sheets make the NY Times best seller list. His patents file themselves. Other venture capital-ists go through his trash can looking for business plans. He is…The Most Interesting Venture Capitalist in the World. Brent Ahrens joined Canaan in 1999 as a member of the Kauffman Fellows Program. A raconteur ex-traordinaire, in his work hours, Brent focuses on healthcare investments and has led investments in life sciences companies such as DexCom (DXCM), Revivant (acquired by ZOLL), Peninsula Pharmaceuti-cals (acquired by JNJ), Cerexa (acquired by FRX), Calixa (acquired by CBST), Durata Therapeutics (DRTX), and Elevation Pharmaceuticals (acquired by DNPUF). Brent serves on the board of Durata Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company pursuing late-stage clinical development of novel antibiotic programs. He is also on the boards of EndoGastric Solutions, the leading company offering medical devices for treatment of reflux disease; Minimally Invasive De-vices, a developer of a franchise of products that substantially improve visualization during laparoscop-ic surgery; Relievant MedSystems, a maker of minimally invasive devices to relieve chronic back pain; Semnur, a developer of pain managements solutions; and Spinifex, a biotech company developing new treatments for chronic pain. Prior to joining Canaan, Brent worked in both commercial and technical roles at General Surgical Inno-vations, Ethicon Endo-Surgery (J&J), and IAP Research. He also has several surgical instrument patents to his credit. Brent earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College after graduating with a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Dayton."  

Research Interest

biomechanics