Manish Kothari, Ph.D., is a Founding Partner of First Spark Ventures, a deep-tech and biotech venture fund based in Silicon Valley.

Prior to First Spark, Manish was the President of SRI International (www.sri.com), a large renowned research nonprofit with a storied 75-year history. He also oversaw SRI Ventures – where he created over 25 startups across a number of areas including biotech, space-tech, voice, autonomy and advanced compute, and had successful exits to J&J, DoorDash, Unity, etc. Prior to that, Manish cofounded/had executive roles in a number of startups in the medical technology area, with multiple successful exits.

Manish received his M.S. degree and Ph.D. in biomechanical engineering from Cornell University, and a post-doctorate at the UCSF. He holds multiple patents and is the author or co-author of several peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

In his spare time, he enjoys playing squash, hiking and creative writing.