Welcome to
Two Bear Capital.
Welcome to
Two Bear Capital.
We’re based in Whitefish, Montana, where the skies are wider, the opportunities brighter, and the thinking clearer.
ABOUT US
From here we can see the future.
Two Bear Capital is led by Mike Goguen, a 20-year veteran of Sequoia Capital. Between 1996 and 2016 Mike sponsored and led 54 company investments to a combined market value exceeding $64 billion. Mike had 26 companies exit above $100 million – 11 of those above $500 million, 6 above $1 billion and 3 above $10 billion in peak market value. He led investments across sectors including cyber security, bioinformatics, biopharma, IT infrastructure, and semiconductors.
Our story
When you can work any place, the only thing that matters is place.
In the early 2000s Mike Goguen visited Whitefish, Montana and fell in love with its wide open spaces. It wasn’t long before he transitioned his 20-year career as a successful Silicon Valley VC to become a Montana-based philanthropist.
Since then, Mike has helped create and fund Two Bear Farm, a certified organic local farm; Two Bear Therapeutic Riding Center; and Two Bear Air Rescue, which has completed over 600 back country search and rescue missions. Currently, Mike is planning a biotech incubator in Whitefish.
Over time, Mike’s commitment to community service intersected with his entrepreneurial spirit. As new tools provided the ability to bring together talented people working at the forefront of innovative technology with start-up ecosystems around the country, Mike recognized a unique opportunity to connect access to capital with access to opportunity.
The result is Two Bear Capital.
Our Approach
We invest early in founder-led companies with disruptive innovations in AI, cybersecurity, healthcare, and biotech that can deliver dramatically better solutions to our toughest problems.
Our goal is ambitious: build a virtuous cycle of economic opportunity, create high impact companies along with jobs for communities, and in the process, change the world for the better.
In addition to capital, we provide our founders with the talent, skills, and experience required to guide their business through every stage of growth, from seed to market leadership.
The companies we help build are poised to deliver massive positive change along with exponential growth in value.
OUR SECTORS
We focus on sectors at inflection points primed to accelerate innovation.
Biotechnology
Biotechnology
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics
Healthcare IT
Healthcare IT
Machine Learning & AI
Machine Learning & AI
Information Security
Information Security
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PACIFIC NORTHWEST
BAY AREA
San Diego
Montana
BOSTON & NYC
COMPANIES
We help build companies whose breakthroughs will deliver impact on a world-changing scale.
COMPANIES
We help build companies whose breakthroughs will deliver impact on a world-changing scale.
“We share a singular aspiration to build companies that make the world better.”
OUR TEAM
Mike Goguen
Founder & Managing Partner

Mike Goguen
Founder & Managing Partner
Whitefish MT
Two Bear Capital is led by Mike Goguen, a 20-year veteran of Sequoia Capital. Between 1996 and 2016 Mike sponsored 54 investments with a combined market value of over $64B. He led investments across sectors including cyber security, bioinformatics, biopharma, networking, and semiconductors. Mike has built the Two Bear brand in Montana as an active philanthropist and as a first responder with Two Bear Air which completed more than 600 helicopter search and rescue missions in the region. Two Bear Capital is the result of Mike’s passion to combine the life-changing platforms that venture capital can enable with a desire to make lives better in an enduring way. Mike earned an undergraduate degree from Cornell and a master's degree from Stanford, both in Electrical Engineering. Mike lives with his family in Whitefish, where he loves to learn, save lives, spend time in the outdoors, and create new opportunities for others and for Montana.
J. Seth Strattan
Partner


J. Seth Strattan
Partner
Silicon Valley CA
J. Seth Strattan, PhD is a Partner based in Silicon Valley focused on the application of data science, software engineering, and genomics technologies to problems in medicine and biology. Seth joined Two Bear Capital from Stanford University where he built and led engineering and data science teams in the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE), Human Cell Atlas (HCA), and International Human Epigenomics (IHEC) consortia. Previously he held entrepreneurial and management positions in enterprise software and consulting. Seth brings to Two Bear Capital a passion for empowering collaborations between scientists and engineers to deliver durable, reproducible solutions to problems in genomics and health. He splits his time between San Francisco, Whitefish, and his family farm in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky. Seth earned his PhD in Structural Biology and BA in Philosophy from Stanford University.
Ida Khodami
Partner


Ida Khodami
Partner
San Diego CA
Ida Khodami is a Partner based in San Diego with expertise in genomics, biotech, and operations. Ida joined TBC from Illumina, where she held multiple leadership positions across Engineering and Operations for over a decade. She built and led the first company validation consortium that resulted in FDA approval for the first ever Next-Generation- Sequencing platform: MiSeqDX. Over the past three years, she has led the global business strategy and operations for the Direct-to-Consumer genomics market. Ida has a MSc from University of Waterloo in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She is passionate about learning, interdisciplinary innovation, and helping the next generation of company builders realize their vision and create positive impact. Outside of work, you’ll find her creating unique recipes inspired by her travels (60+ countries) and local seasonal ingredients.
Ryan Castonia
Principal


Ryan Castonia
Principal
Whitefish MT
As a Principal on the investment team, Ryan leads a broad range of deal flow, diligence, and investment decisions. An MIT trained engineer, turned special operations officer, and founding team member of the DoD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, Ryan is a generalist who is passionate about working with tenacious founders to build and develop culture, strategy, and leadership. After hours, Ryan enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters exploring Glacier National Park, snowboarding, and the constant humbling that comes from learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Rachel Tsunemoto Hislop
Principal


Rachel Tsunemoto Hislop
Principal
San Diego CA
As a Principal at Two Bear Capital, Rachel focuses on the scientific due diligence behind investment decisions and is passionate about accelerating innovations in disease prevention, diagnostics, and drug discovery. As a former academic researcher and Medical Science Liaison in biotech, Rachel’s experiences in the therapeutic development process span from preclinical to post-approval. Rachel has a PhD in Neurosciences from UC San Diego and her graduate work led to a first author publication in Nature. After hours, Rachel enjoys spending time with her husband and lovable husky, working out at the gym, trying new restaurants, and learning Spanish.
Avery Sonnenberg
Principal


Avery Sonnenberg
Principal
Whitefish MT
As a Principal at Two Bear Capital, Avery focuses on the technology, science, and business case behind investment decisions. With a PhD in Bioengineering from UC San Diego, Avery joins the firm after a senior engineering role in the Life Science Innovation group at Becton Dickinson. Avery's expertise, through both academic and industry experience, is in anticipating, understanding, and solving the roadblocks between transformational technologies and life-changing products. Avery enjoys hiking, biking, climbing, and camping, especially with his wife and three young sons.
Alex Krizhevsky
Venture Partner


Alex Krizhevsky
Venture Partner
Silicon Valley CA
As a Venture Partner with deep expertise in artificial intelligence, Alex focuses on applications of this emerging technology to a wide range of problems. A former member of Google Brain, Alex’s graduate work in machine learning has been among the most influential in the field. His CIFAR-10/100 datasets have become standard benchmarks. His 2012 paper on “AlexNet,” now with more than 51,000 citations, kick-started the artificial intelligence revolution that we are presently living through. In his spare time Alex enjoys learning to play piano and is trying to raise a well-adjusted kitten.
Jen O’Connell
Vice President, Operations


Jen O’Connell
Vice President, Operations
Whitefish MT
As VP of Operations for Two Bear Capital, Jen oversees all company operations while also ensuring our portfolio companies have access to the services they need in order to be successful. Jen’s professional accomplishments include building/launching 3 national cell phone companies, advising Wall Street on Emerging Technology trends, authoring “The Cell Phone Decoder Ring,” and serving as on-air Tech expert for MSNBC, ABC News and Fox. On the business side, Jen worked for several Tier 1 wireless operators & successfully ran her own wireless consulting business prior to joining a Silicon Valley start-up that sold to Cisco for $1.4 Billion. When not busy working, Jen can be found enjoying time with her young son & very active puppy.
Liz Marchi
Head of Community
Engagement


Liz Marchi
Head of Community Engagement
Whitefish MT
Liz leads Two Bear Capital’s community engagement and partnerships. She is a pioneer in building access to equity capital and high-value startups in nontraditional locations. She founded and led Montana based Frontier Angels, www.frontierangels.com for 12 years, seeding more than $20 million in very early stage capital. Liz will engage the firm and our portfolio companies with a broad network of investors, entrepreneurs and philanthropists to support the TBC mission of doing well and doing good. She is a graduate of Hollins College in Virginia where she served as a Trustee. Liz lives on a ranch and is a lover of gardening, global travel, reading, and her three corgis.
Jenny Kim
Investor Relations


Jenny Kim
Investor Relations
Los Angeles CA
Jenny Kim leads Two Bear Capital's fundraising and investor relations strategy. Prior to TBC, Jenny began her career at Sequoia Capital and has since held roles as a venture capital investor and Limited Partner, and led operational initiatives at a hyper-growth start-up. She is passionate about the sciences, and previously performed basic science research in oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Outside of the office, Jenny enjoys practicing art, guitar, Spanish and surfing.
John L. Sullivan
SPECIAL ADVISOR


John L. Sullivan
SPECIAL ADVISOR
Whitefish MT
John is a Special Advisor to Two Bear Capital. He has over 25 years experience analyzing healthcare and life sciences industry trends as well as emerging biopharma company assets / strategies. John was the Director of Research for investment bank SVB Leerink where he was a Healthcare Investment Strategist. Prior to that, an award-winning Wall Street research analyst in life sciences. John is a graduate of Boston University (current member of the Dean's Advisory Board of the School of Public Health) and holds graduate degrees from both Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and Harvard University. As a resident in Boston, John spends his free time with family, working with charities that change young peoples' lives, and daily cardio workouts that he attacks with great vigor and reluctance.
VALUES
Two Bear Capital exists to partner with exceptional teams to help them solve problems that matter - problems that, when solved, will make our world a better place

HONE RAZOR-SHARP LOGIC
Distilling complicated problems and technologies into essential elements is difficult. We hone razor-sharp logic, beginning from first principles, in order to concisely communicate, make decisions, and solve problems.
FOSTER DIFFERENCES AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH
We celebrate our differences as strength. By actively seeking and combining different viewpoints, backgrounds, cultures, and experiences, we strive to better understand problems and collectively create better solutions.
STOKE PASSION
Passion and grit are critical ingredients to doing anything
of consequence and we believe there are brilliant, passionate people everywhere. When passion and grit align, anything is possible.
SERVE OTHERS
PURSUE A LIFETIME OF LEARNING
Lifelong learning is sustained by an infinite curiosity about the world and how things can be made better. We seek constant improvement, honest and open introspection, and encourage productive debate.
