Kelly Kaihara

Founding Partner at Blueward Ventures

Kelly Kaihara is an investor in early-stage biotech companies, recently founding Blueward Ventures. Prior to Blueward Ventures, Kelly spent time at General Inception where they invested in over 44 companies over 4 years across therapeutics, life science tools, diagnostics and med devices, focusing on the pre-seed stage. She was Director of the Life Science Tools & Diagnostics vertical leading diligence and sourcing. She also held roles as a fractional executive and advisor for two portfolio companies, Switchback Systems making a benchtop DNA synthesizer, and Partilion Biosciences, a reagent company measuring the secretome from single cells, both of which successfully went on to raise their seed round of funding.

Kelly has also advised and mentored numerous founders and startups through her participation in incubator and accelerator programs, including BioTools Innovator, Nucleate, and NVCA’s Venture Forward program. Prior to her role at General Inception, she spent 10 years as an operator, working at Mission Bio, a single cell DNA sequencing company, and at Bio-Rad where she supported the Life Science Tools portfolio.

Kelly obtained her BA from Carleton College, has a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Chicago, and did her postdoc in diabetes research at UCSF. Kelly is passionate about bringing her expertise and experience in Life Science to help entrepreneurs advance their companies to the next level.