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Pritzker Group Venture Capital Adds 3 Venture Partners
[May 02, 2018]

Pritzker Group Venture Capital Adds 3 Venture Partners


Pritzker Group Venture Capital today announced the addition of three new venture partners. Dr. Pat Basu, David Schonthal and Craig Wortmann - a trio with a breadth of experience across a variety of industries - will be responsible for driving value for PGVC portfolio companies and helping entrepreneurs execute their growth plans.

"We are thrilled to bring Pat, David and Craig on board," said Chris Girgenti, managing partner of Pritzker Group Venture Capital. "Our Venture Partner program has a track record of creating tremendous value for our portfolio companies, and by adding three operators of the highest caliber, we'll be able to accelerate those gains."

Basu, Schonthal and Wortmann, whose professional experiences span a range of sectors and disciplines, will extend PGVC's expertise in health care, product design and go-to-market capabilities. They join veteran PGVC venture partners Carter Cast (Clinical Professor, Kellogg School of Management and Author, The Right [and Wrong] Stuff) and Dave Habiger (CEO, J.D. Power and Associates), with the firm since 2012 and 2013, respectively.

Dr. Pat Basu is a business leader who has served as a senior executive in the corporate, government, private equity and clinical sectors. A former Stanford physician and White House adviser, Basu recently served as senior vice president for Optum and UnitedHealth Group, where he helped lead the largest health services group in the nation. Basu managed and had profit-and-loss responsibility for a $9 billion enterprise spanning 9,000 team-members, executives and clinicians. Previously, he held roles as president, chief operating officer and chief medical officer at vRad,the post-merger entity of publicly traded firms Virtual Radiologic and NightHawk. He also helped start Doctor On Demand, a transformative telehealth company that is the largest provider of primary care and behavioral health care video visits in the U.S. He serves on the boards of the University of Illinois and the Stanford Medical Alumni Association and is a judge for the University of Chicago's New Venture Challenge. He is a practicing physician who has served as a visiting faculty member at seven universities.



David Schonthal is a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he teaches courses in new venture creation, design thinking and creativity. He also serves as the executive director of Kellogg's Zell Fellows program - a selective venture accelerator designed to help student-entrepreneurs successfully launch new businesses. In addition to his work at Kellogg, Schonthal is a senior portfolio director and business designer at IDEO, an award-winning innovation consultancy, where he helps companies design new business models and creative paths to market. Schonthal has developed initiatives such as IDEO's Startup-in-Residence program as well as other offers and approaches around venture design and corporate entrepreneurship. He is also a co-founder of MATTER, a leading health care technology incubator and innovation center.

Craig Wortmann, a clinical professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management, is the founder and executive director of the Kellogg Sales Institute. Wortmann designed, developed and teaches an award-winning course called Entrepreneurial Selling, recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the top 10 entrepreneurial courses in the U.S. Wortmann has been a salesman and entrepreneur for more than 25 years, starting his career with IBM (News - Alert). He founded Sales Engine Inc., a tools and services firm built on the belief that a company should treat sales as the engine of its business. As a professional speaker and sales adviser, Wortmann helps others develop the knowledge, skills and discipline necessary to build a successful sales engine.


About Pritzker Group Venture Capital

Pritzker Group Venture Capital (PGVC) helps entrepreneurs build market-leading technology companies at every stage of their growth. Since its founding in 1996, the firm has worked side-by-side with entrepreneurs at more than 150 companies, building partnerships based on trust and integrity. The firm's proprietary capital structure allows for tremendous flexibility, and its experienced team of investment professionals and entrepreneur advisers offers companies a vast network of strategic relationships and guidance. PGVC invests predominantly in Series A and Series B companies with particular focus on consumer, digital health, enterprise and emerging technologies. Successful exits in recent years include IO Data Centers (acquired by Iron Mountain (News - Alert)), Cloud Technology Partners (acquired by HPE), Cleversafe (acquired by IBM), Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever), Viv Labs (acquired by Samsung), and Fleetmatics (IPO - NYSE: FLTX, acquired by Verizon (News - Alert)). For more information, visit pritzkergroup.com/venture-capital.


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