Ashok Krishnamurthi

Ashok Krishnamurthi (born June 10, 1965) is an Indian-American entrepreneur, inventor, and investor. He is currently a Managing Partner at GreatPoint Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. He holds numerous patents and has co-founded multiple companies in technology and healthcare. His most recent company was CAPP Medical, a cancer diagnostics company that was acquired by Roche Diagnostics. Previously, he was the Co-Founder and CEO at Xsigo Systems, a provider of advanced data center connectivity, which was acquired by Oracle Corporation|Oracle. Prior to Xsigo, Ashok was an early team member at Juniper Networks.
== Early life ==
Krishnamurthi was born in Shillong, India. Krishnamurthi's father, C.R. Krishnamurthi, was a diplomat for the World Health Organization (WHO).Prior to working for the World Health Organization, C.R. Krishnamurthi worked for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). The Krishnamurthi Physics Center in Nichols Hall at the Harker School in San Jose, CA is named after C.R. Krishnamurthi.
Krishnamurthi is a graduate of the Manipal Institute of Technology, where he studied Electrical Engineering, and a graduate of Syracuse University, where he studied Computer Engineering.
== Early career ==
Krishnamurthi has held engineering and management positions at Sun Microsystems, TriMedia (mediaprocessor)|Philips Trimedia, PARC (company)|Xerox PARC and AT&T Bell Labs as a member of technology staff.
=== Juniper Networks ===
Ashok was one of Juniper Network's first employees. He left after eight years with the network-equipment maker. His most recent title was EVP and general manager of the infrastructure products group, where he helped lead the engineering organization since the company's early days.
The company was founded in 1996 by Pradeep Sindhu, with Scott Kriens as the first CEO, who remained until September 2008. Kriens has been credited with much of Juniper's early market success. It received several rounds of funding from venture capitalists and telecommunications companies before Initial public offering|going public in 1999.
=== Xsigo Systems ===
Xsigo Systems was founded in August 2004 by Ashok Krishnamurthi, R.K. Anand, S.K. Vinod, and Shreyas Shah. The privately held company was based in San Jose, CA and funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers|Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla#Khosla Ventures|Khosla Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners and Greylock Partners. Ashok Krishnamurthi served as vice-chairman of the company. Krishnamurthi previously held the positions of vice president and general manager of the infrastructure product line at Juniper Networks, prior to Xsigo Systems. Lloyd Carney served as the Chief executive officer of the company. Carney was general manager of IBM's Netcool Division, which acquired Micromuse where Carney had been chairman and CEO. Prior to Micromuse, Carney was COO at Juniper Networks and head of three divisions at Nortel Networks, including the Core IP Division, the Wireless Internet Division and the Enterprise Data Divisions.
Xsigo Systems was purchased by Oracle Corporation. The deal was announced at the end of July, 2012 and finalized on September 12, 2012.
=== CAPP Medical ===
Krishnamurthi founded CAPP Medical in 2013, where he served as Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
The company developed a technology to analyze ctDNA from blood using next-generation sequencing that can detect multiple mutations with a single assay, which could be helpful to select cancer therapies and monitor tumor response and resistance.
In 2015, Roche Diagnostics announced it had acquired CAPP Medical to advance the development of technology for cancer screening and monitoring through the detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in blood.
== Personal life & Philanthropy ==
Krishnamurthi is married to Deepa Iyengar, whom he met at Syracuse University, who is also a computer engineer.
Together, Krishnamurthi and Deepa have committed millions of dollars to philanthropic efforts. Efforts include:
* Establishing a leukemia clinical research fund and the Krishnamurthi Endowed Chair in Hematologic Malignancies at UCSF.
* Supporting the planning and construction phases of Nichols Hall, Davis Field and the Singh Aquatic Center at The Harker School in San Jose, California.
* Gifting the Krishnamurthi Physics Center to The Harker School in San Jose, California.
Krishnamurthi and Deepa have two sons, Gautam Krishnamurthi and Sidhart Krishnamurthi, who played for the Stanford Cardinal football team alongside Christian McCaffrey, an American football running back for the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL).
Krishnamurthi is a member of the Forbes Councils, where he writes about Finance and Venture Capital.
== Patents ==
Krishnamurthi holds more than 20 patents in his name. More information on his patents can be found here.
 
Category:1965 births
Category:Indian inventors
Category:Indian businesspeople