Madrona adds three new venture partners; DexCare hires exec; and more – GeekWire

— Seattle venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group announced it added three new venture partners: Loren Alhadeff, Mark Nelson, and Ted Kummert.

Alhadeff, formerly the COO of DocuSign, has more than 14 years in sales leadership experience. He will work with portfolio companies on go-to-market strategies, sales teams development, field leadership, and executive growth, the firm said.

Nelson, who stepped down from his position as CEO of Tableau in December, will transition from strategic director to venture partner at Madrona. The longtime Seattle tech vet was part of the leadership teams during the acquisitions of Tableau by Salesforce for $15.7 billion in 2019 and Concur by SAP for $8.3 billion in 2018. Nelson will scout new startups and work with portfolio companies, Madrona said.

Kummert will return to Madrona as venture partner after serving as chief product development officer at UiPath. He spent more than 23 years at Microsoft in various engineering roles, then was part of the leadership teams at UiPath and Apptio during their initial public offering runs. Kummert will join Madrona’s investment team, advising product and engineering founders, the firm said.

“A deep bench of world-class operators helping early stage companies build and scale their organizations is critical to our success,” Madrona Managing Director Scott Jacobson said in a statement.

— Seattle healthcare startup DexCare hired Robin Borg as chief people officer. The longtime human resources vet previously served as CPO of telemedicine startup Galileo and health insurance company Surest.

Borg’s hire comes on the heels of DexCare’s $75 million funding round earlier this month. The startup sells a healthcare demand and access platform, helping optimize patient scheduling and provider matching for hospitals and clinics.

— Seattle biotech firm Kineta said Kim Drapkin and Scott Dylla were appointed to its board of directors. Drapkin most recently served as the CFO of cancer immunotherapy company Jounce Therapeutics. She also serves on several biotech company boards. Dylla co-founded Stemcentrx, a biotech firm that developed cell-based treatments for lung cancer. The company was acquired in 2016 by biotech giant AbbVie for $6.2 billion. Dylla advises and serves on the boards of various biotech companies.

Kineta announced Thursday it received a $5 million payment from Merck after achieving a development milestone in its efforts to create a treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Kineta said last year that it would enter the public markets through a merger.

— Shape Therapeutics named Adrian Briggs as CTO. A former resident fellow at Harvard Medical School, Briggs led the founding team at AbVitro, which spun out of the university and later was acquired by Juno Therapeutics for $125 million in 2016. After Bristol Meyers Squibb acquired Juno Therapeutics, Briggs served as a senior advisor the company before joining Shape Therapeutics in 2021.

Shape Therapeutics raised $112 million in 2021 and signed a deal worth up to $3 billion with pharma giant Roche. The company is developing RNA editing and gene therapy technologies for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

— Robert Kaskel, the former chief people officer at Remitly and a onetime HR director at Amazon, is the new CPO at Checkr, a San Francisco-based HR and hiring technology company.

Based in the Seattle area, Kaskel previously helped Remitly develop and scale its people team as the company grew from 800 to 3,000 employees. He spent more than eight years at Amazon and seven at Microsoft. 

— Heidi Hagen was appointed to the board of directors at A-Alpha Bio. She works as a biotech and pharmaceutical consultant at HH Consulting, where she helps investors perform due diligence. Hagen also works as CTO of Sonoma Biotherapeutics, a startup developing cell-based therapies to treat autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

Founded in 2017, A-Alpha Bio landed $20 million in venture funding in September 2021 after lining up three pharma partners. Last year, the company inked a deal with Bristol Myers Squibb to identify interactions between proteins and the machinery that degrades them.

— Vancouver, B.C.-based biotech company Zymeworks said Carlos Campoy will join its board of directors. He previously served as the CFO of CytomX Therapeutics and Alder Biopharmaceuticals, as well as a number of executive finance roles at biotech companies.