Ross O’Brien, Founder & Managing Partner

Ross O’Brien is the Founder & Managing Partner of Bonaventure Equity, LLC (“BVE”), a boutique life sciences venture capital firm. He is a lifelong entrepreneur, author and investor, and believes in the power of entrepreneurship to tackle healthcare's biggest challenges. His approach to venture capital investing is predicated on being more than just a source of capital but a true catalyst for founders who aim to change the way in which we help patients. Built by founders, for founders, BVE is an active group of investors who together invest in the advancement of science, funding and working with entrepreneurs and informing regulatory reforms. BVE is currently investing out of its second fund and has 16 portfolio  companies.

Prior to starting  BVE Ross served a group of family offices responsible for all of their self-directed venture capital, private equity and real estate investments and led syndicated financings across a variety of sectors and industries with a focus on healthcare.

Ross has a broad spectrum of private company expertise ranging from starting and operating high growth businesses, numerous venture capital and private equity transactions, advising portfolio companies on mergers and acquisitions transactions, and capital introductions. He has taught entrepreneurship and finance at Florida Atlantic University, holds several board positions and has spent his career primarily working with family offices and early-stage growth ready founders. He has been an advisor for programs on investing, entrepreneurship and impact investing at MIT (2011) and Harvard (2014) and was on the steering committee that launched TechRunway at Florida Atlantic University, where they still teach the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp program he initially designed and authored.

At the start of his finance career, Ross worked on Wall Street with a boutique New York investment banking firm, was a Manager at Geller & Company and an Assistant Vice President at JPMorgan Chase. He was a founder of a digital technology company, which he and his partners exited in 2006. He began his career at Sony BMG and has international experience working in the UK, Europe, Hong Kong and Canada.

Ross earned an MBA from Fordham University and obtained a BS in Business Marketing & Management from Ferris State University. Ross started The Founder's Door initiative  to highlight mental health awareness for entrepreneurs and enjoys motorcycles, skiing and writing music  in his spare time.