Sharon Kedar

Sharon Kedar is a Co-Founder and Partner of Northpond Ventures, a science- and technology-driven venture capital firm she helped launch in 2018 alongside founder and CEO Michael P. Rubin, M.D., Ph.D., CFA. The firm, headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland with offices in Cambridge and San Francisco, has grown to roughly $2 billion in assets under management and backs companies "advancing science and technology for the benefit of humanity" across life sciences, diagnostics, digital health, and medical devices.

Before co-founding Northpond, Kedar spent about 15 years at Sands Capital, the Arlington-based investment management firm, ultimately serving as Chief Financial Officer. During her tenure the firm's assets under management grew from roughly $1.5 billion to $50 billion. Along the way she held multiple roles at Sands, including analyst/portfolio manager work in the technology sector, Western-states client relations, and a seat on the board of Sands Capital Ventures. Earlier in her career she was a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Kedar holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Rice University, and she is a CFA charterholder. Beyond investing, she is a longtime advocate for financial literacy and co-authored two personal-finance books for women with Manisha Thakor — *On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl's Guide to Personal Finance* and *Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money with Your Honey*.

More recently, Kedar has become a prominent public voice on women's health and longevity. She hosts the *Innovate and Elevate* podcast, where she interviews physicians, scientists, and founders about breakthroughs in human health. Her public recognition includes Forbes' "50 Over 50" innovators list, CNBC Changemaker (2025), and Time 100 Healthcare Leaders.

• Invests through Northpond Ventures in science- and research-driven companies — the firm partners with academic institutions and entrepreneurs to commercialize scientific discoveries, describing its mission as "advancing science and technology for the benefit of humanity."
• Sectors: biotechnology, diagnostics, digital health, life-science research tools/enabling platforms, biomanufacturing, and medical devices; disease coverage spans oncology, immunology, neurology, cardiology, GI/microbiome, infectious diseases, and rare/genetic diseases.
• Stage & checks: the firm invests from seed/early stage through growth (Series A–C most common), with typical checks in the ~$10M–$50M range and a willingness to lead.
• Personal thesis: Kedar describes herself as working "at the intersection of capital allocation, scientific innovation, public education, and women's health progress," with stated focus areas of women's health, longevity, diagnostics, and closing funding and research gaps in those domains.
• Says yes to companies with strong scientific/technical foundations and a credible path to commercializing rigorous research — reflecting the firm's role as an investor in the "infrastructure and tooling layer" of life sciences, not just therapeutics.