Founded by experienced entrepreneurs, engineers, policymakers, and healthcare industry leaders, we grow seed-stage startups through direct funding, shared operations services, and expert coaching.
Our Vision
To identify and empower the next generation of brilliant minds in technology to transform the world through disruptive advancements.
Our Mission
To infuse market-disrupting innovations with talent and commercial expertise and forge companies that decisively impact our world.
Our Approach
To surround entrepreneurs with advisors, services and support to help their startups modify and refine business models to drive customer acquisition and accelerate revenue.
Entrepreneurs
Forge your vision into reality.
Investors
Access a diversified portfolio of early-stage companies with explosive growth potential.
Demonstrated Success
Our Founders and Advisors have been associated with multiple successful exits and played a part in seeding and growing influential HealthTech and GovTech companies around the world. With strong international relationships, industry leadership, and technical expertise, our team is poised to provide entrepreneurs the knowledge, mentorship, and tools necessary for successful growth.
Founders
Richard A. Caplin (Ricky)
Co-Founder, Aurora Forge LLC (Venture Studio)
Principal, Aurora Forge Venture Fund I LP
Executive Officer, The HCI Group
CEO Healthcare and Life Sciences, Tech Mahindra
Chairman, Caplin Ventures
Globally recognized as a leading entrepreneur who has successfully launched multiple organizations, including one of the largest global IT consulting firms advancing technology to improve care and reduce the cost of healthcare. Serves as CEO of Healthcare & Life Sciences at Tech Mahindra and CEO of The HCI Group dedicated to the adoption of digital technology in healthcare. Recently entered the GovTech space and is a co-founder and partner in transformative technology projects. Recognized leader by EY, Jacksonville Business Journal, KPMG and University of Florida year over year. Passionate about faith, family and community, Ricky resides in Jacksonville, Florida with his wife and 3 children.
Dr. Newton Howard
Co-Founder, Aurora Forge LLC (Venture Studio)
Director, Synthetic Intelligence Laboratory, MIT
Professor, Computational Neurology and Functional Neurosurgery, University of Oxford
Professor, Brain Sciences, Georgetown University
Founder, Center for Advanced Defense Studies
Dr. Newton Howard’s career spans academia, the U.S. military, and the private sector. A prolific scientific author and inventor, he is highly skilled in moving research from the lab to military and commercial applications, including technology you may use daily such as Wi-Fi hotspots, Skype, Google Earth and Google Translate. A former government scientist, Dr. Howard was the Founder of The Mind Machine Project and the Director of the Synthetic Intelligence Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently a Professor at the University of Oxford and at Georgetown University.
Ross Mason
Co-Founder, Aurora Forge LLC (Venture Studio)
Healthcare Entrepreneur and Angel Investor
Ross Mason lived and worked in Silicon Valley from 1999 to 2004 where he started and sold a healthcare software company. He worked for Volkswagen’s €280 million Healthcare Venture Accelerator Fund and €500 million innovation campus in Wolfsburg, Germany. In addition to Incubation Campus Wolfsburg, he has worked with Praxis, Eastlake Ventures, and InCube Labs. Ross was an Associate in Private Banking at Morgan Stanley (New York, London, Zurich, Moscow, and Atlanta), and created a real estate investment and development company in Moscow, Russia that he owned and operated for 12 years.
Katrina Barillova Koop
Co-Founder + Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Aurora Forge LLC (Venture Studio)
Managing Director, Aurora Forge Venture Fund I LP
Serial Entrepreneur and Investor
Katrina’s expertise spans multiple disciplines and industries, including finance, media and technology. She is a Goodwill Ambassador, a serial entrepreneur, an investor, a recognized branding and marketing expert, a philanthropist, and a spokesperson. She has served in multiple executive-level and other leadership roles directly, via investment vehicles and through advisory engagements, and has developed an extensive global network of relationships with some of the world’s leading private, corporate, government, financial and non-profit institutions.
Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD
Co-Founder, Aurora Forge LLC (Venture Studio)
Managing Director, Aurora Forge Venture Fund I LP
Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer, University Hospitals Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, School of Medicine and School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University
Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, is a world-renowned patient safety champion, innovator, critical care physician, a prolific researcher (publishing over 800 peer review publications), entrepreneur (founding a healthcare start-up that was acquired), and a global thought leader, informing US and global health policy. His scientific work leveraging checklists to reduce catheter-related bloodstream infections has saved thousands of lives and earned him high-profile accolades, including being named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, receiving a coveted MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2008.