Frank Santiago

Frank Santiago is a co-founder and President of The SEED Partners, a Minneapolis-based ventures group founded in 2013 that describes itself as a partnership of experienced entrepreneurs, operators, and investors who "incubate and invest in early-stage healthcare technologies." Unusually for a seed investor, the firm operates its own in-house, modular research-and-development organization and a pilot manufacturing lab — a structure it explicitly models on the U.S. military's DARPA program — and pairs that applied-science capability with an integrated venture fund. Santiago's role spans both sides of that model: as President he sets strategic direction, and he has also been identified as SEED's Chief Science Officer, overseeing the scientific R&D team.

The firm's thesis is "applied scientific rigor" — using its own bench scientists (researchers such as Gary L. Johnson and David J. Phelps, PhD, have been named on the team) to build and validate technologies before spinning them into companies. SEED works across biopharmaceutical, bioscience, medical-device, technology, and consumer-retail categories, positioning itself as a builder as much as a backer. Santiago co-founded the firm alongside Jeff Julkowski, whose earlier career included the jewelry brand Chamilia and Morgan Stanley; the two anchor a team the firm lists at roughly 11–50 people, including shared laboratory space in downtown Minneapolis.

Under Santiago's leadership SEED has functioned as a venture studio that acquires and commercializes early technology as well as investing in outside startups. Its most visible science bet is Intracellular Technologies, LLC, formed to develop and commercialize a platform for detecting active caspases — the primary biomarker of apoptosis — in living cells, with applications across cancer, Alzheimer's, macular degeneration, and ischemia. To reinforce its medtech credibility, the firm brought in medical-device veteran Doug Kohrs to chair its advisory board.

• Stage: Seed / earliest stage — the firm both incubates companies from its own R&D and invests in outside founders.
• Sectors: Biopharma, bioscience, medical devices, broader technology, and consumer retail — with a strong bias toward science- and healthcare-driven ventures.
• What makes them say yes: "Applied scientific rigor." SEED leans on its own in-house lab and pilot-manufacturing capability (DARPA-modeled) to validate a technology's science before backing it — so defensible, testable technology and a path to first-to-market products matter more than pure narrative.
• Check size: Roughly $1M+ at seed based on disclosed activity (e.g., a $1.21M seed round into My Normal Shop).
• Model: More of a venture-studio / operator-investor than a passive check-writer — they will build, co-develop, and manufacture alongside founders, not just fund them.