Medical Microinstruments, Inc. (MMI) is guided by a group of investors and professionals with years of experience in bringing new medical devices to the market. After initial funding rounds from Sambatech Angel Investors, in 2018 Medical Microinstruments S.p.A raised €20M in Series A funding to advance its robotic platform for microsurgery. The investor syndicate was led by Andera Partners, with Panakes Partners and Fountain Healthcare, returning Seed investor Sambatech, and two industry veterans from world leading companies in surgical robotics and peripheral nerve repair. 

In June 2022, MMI S.p.A. became MMI, Inc. and raised an additional $75M in Series B funding backed by international medtech investors including Andera Partners, BioStar, Deerfield Management, Fountain Healthcare Partners, Panakès Partners, RA Capital and Sambatech. 

Andrew Cleeland
Chairman of the Board

Andrew is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in the medical device industry in both the private and public sectors. Mr. Cleeland is currently CEO of the Fogarty Institute for Innovation, a leading US non-profit incubator helping early-stage companies transform ideas into medical products that improve care.

Prior to joining the Fogarty Institute, he was Vice President and General Manager of Medtronic’s (MDT:NYSE) Transcatheter Mitral Valve business following its 2015 acquisition of Twelve Inc., where he was President and CEO.  Prior to Twelve, he was President and CEO of Ardian Inc., the pioneer of renal denervation for hypertension, heart failure and other associated disorders, which was also acquired by Medtronic in 2011. Together these two acquisitions totaled $1.5B.

Andrew began his career with the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration, progressed to large med tech companies in Telectronics Pacing Systems and Baxter Healthcare (BAX:NYSE), then onto the Silicon Valley start-up space working with Radiant Medical, Ardian and Twelve.

He is currently Vice Chairman of The Foundry, the premier medical device incubator based in Menlo Park, California and serves as a Director on the Boards of two venture-funded companies; Saluda Medical and Zenflow, Inc. (Chairman of the Board).  He was also a Director at nVision Medical that was recently acquired by Boston Scientific (BSX:NYSE). 

MARK TOLAND
CEO

Mark Toland is the CEO of MMI SpA. Before joining MMI, Mark served as the President and CEO of Corindus where he transformed the company into the industry leader in vascular robotics with the only approved system for coronary, peripheral and neurovascular indications. The Siemens Healthineers acquisition of Corindus for $1.1 billion was the fifth largest medical technology acquisition of 2019. Prior to Corindus, Mark served as Senior Vice President of Boston Scientific, where he built the company’s global solutions business and led all aspects of the U.S. commercial team’s cardiovascular businesses, which represented approximately $4 billion in revenue. Mark brings over 25 years of medical device experience to MMI.  In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors for Cardiologs, a cardiovascular AI company, and Amplitude Vascular Systems, an Intravascular Lithotripsy company.  He also serves as a partner and EIR at Biostar Capital, a healthcare focused Venture Capital firm.  Mr. Toland holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Louisville. 

Andrew Elbardissi
Board Member Representing Deerfield Management

Andrew ElBardissi, M.D., is a Partner on the Medical Technologies team and joined the Firm in 2017. Prior to Deerfield, Dr. ElBardissi was a Principal at Longitude Capital, where he focused on investments in medtech and biotechnology. Before that, he was an Associate in JPMorgan’s healthcare investment banking practice. Dr. ElBardissi received residency training in General Surgery at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford University. He has been independently funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, has authored over 30 publications in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals and has presented his research at numerous medical and surgical conferences. Dr. ElBardissi holds an M.D. from the Mayo Clinic, an M.P.H. in Quantitative Methods from Harvard University, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. with honors in Biology (Phi Beta Kappa) from the Schreyer Honors College at the Pennsylvania State University.

Tess Cameron
Board Member Representing RA Capital Management

Tess Cameron is a Principal, Strategic Finance at RA Capital Management. Tess’s primary responsibility is to partner with their portfolio companies as a strategic finance advisor. Tess comes to RA from Foghorn Therapeutics, where she was Head of Finance. Prior to Foghorn, Tess held finance leadership roles at Wave Life Sciences, where she was responsible for FP&A and corporate finance, and Biogen, where she was the finance lead for the CMO and the neurodegeneration portfolio. Prior to joining biotech/pharma, she was a specialist in the corporate finance team at McKinsey & Co, focused on corporate transactions. Ms. Cameron sits on several Boards including Cytek Biosciences, Avilar Therapeutics, Nodexus, and has a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Economics and Peace & Conflict studies from the University of Toronto, Canada.

Alessio Beverina
Board Member Representing Panakes

Mr. Alessio Beverina is a co-founder and General Partner of Panakes Partners, a venture capital (VC) firm headquartered in Milan, Italy. Alessio’s VC experience was developed while working at Sofinnova Partners, one of the largest VC’s in Europe where he progressed from an Analyst to a Partner. His experience included both European and American exposure. Mr. Beverina has a Master’s of Science in Chemical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano and an MBA from ESCP-EAP. In addition, Alessio is a Kauffman Fellow.

Olivier Litzka
Board Member Representing Andera Partners

Olivier is a partner at Andera Partners' life sciences franchise constituted by its BioDiscovery funds. Andera Partners, formerly EdRIP, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, is a leading European Private Equity House, managing more than €2B in Life Sciences Venture Capital, Growth Capital, LBO, and Sponsorless Mezzanine. The team manages around €700M of assets. Previously he was a Partner at EdRIP in the Life Science fund franchise BioDiscovery, based in Paris and investing in Europe and in the US. He also worked at 3i Group PLC where he focused purely on investments in biotechnology, biopharma, medtech and healthcare companies. In addition, he represents Andera on several boards.

justin lynch
Board Member Representing Fountain Healthcare

Justin Lynch is a partner in Fountain Healthcare Partners and serves as the CFO of the firm. He joined the team prior to the launch of Fund I in 2008. Justin has a particular interest in the medical device sector and led the firm's investments in MMI S.p.A., Vivasure Medical, Neuravi (acquired by J&J, 2017) and Neurent Medical. He has over 25 years of experience in capital markets, corporate finance, and entrepreneurial and venture investing across multiple sectors, particularly focused on life sciences. Justin has a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting & Finance from Dublin City University, an MBA from Trinity College Dublin and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Gus Castello
Independent Board Member

Since 2014, Gus Castello has successfully provided leadership and consulting services to small medical device companies for developing infrastructure and talent during moments of explosive new product growth. Mr. Castello has 30 years of experience in Product Operations for multi-national, medical device companies bringing disruptive technologies to the dental, orthodontics, and conventional and robotic assisted laparoscopy industries including: Sybron Dental Specialties 1995-1991 (acquired by Danaher), United States Surgical Corporation 1992-2002 (acquired by Medtronic), and most recently, Intuitive Surgical, Inc. 2002-2014. Previously, Gus was the Manufacturing Engineering Manager at Sybron (inventors of the first commercially available invisible orthodontic brace), the GM for Caribbean Operations at United States Surgical Corporation (creators of the first successful laparoscopic stapling technology), and SVP of Product Operations at Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (creators of world’s most successful laparoscopic surgical robot, the da Vinci Surgical system). Gus graduated from California State University in Long Beach with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineer.

Arturo Baroncelli
Board Member Representing the MMI Founders

Arturo Baroncelli is a private consultant with over 35 years of experience in the robotics and automation industry. From 1988 to 2020, Arturo worked for Comau S.P.A. (FCA Group), covering several positions in design, project management, product planning, marketing, sales, strategic management and business development. Prior to joining Comau, he worked for Olivetti Numerical Control as design engineer and project manager. Mr. Baroncelli is an honorary member of the Italian Society of Robotics, National coordinator of ISO Norms of Robots and Systems, and past-president of the IFR, International Federation of Robotics in addition to winning the prestigious Engelberger Award in Tokyo in 2005. He also wrote several papers for various magazines, conferences, books and holds patents in the field of robotic applications. Mr. Baroncelli has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pisa and Scuola Superiore S.Anna and a Master’s in Management from IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland.