Richard Caro: Biography
Dr. Richard G. Caro has 30+ years of experience at the intersection of technology and business — as startup CEO; startup CTO; scientist/inventor; angel investor; and advisor to emerging growth companies.
Dr. Caro is Co-founder of Tech-enhanced Life, PBC — a social venture which, together with a virtual community of older adults (the Longevity Explorers), is exploring the intersection of aging and technology and seeking ways to leverage technology to enhance quality of life as people age.
He is also CEO of TangibleFuture, Inc., an advisory services firm which he founded in 2004 to help innovators turn advances in science and technology into successful businesses.
From 1986 to 1999 Richard held operational roles in high tech companies in Silicon Valley and Boston. He was CEO (founder) of Vital Insite, a venture-backed, medical device start-up developing noninvasive monitoring products; Engineering Program Manager at Coherent, one of the world’s largest laser manufacturers; and CTO (employee #5) of Summit Technology, a pioneer in the laser refractive surgery (LASIK) business. Before entering industry, he was a member of the research staff at Stanford University.
Immediately prior to founding TangibleFuture, Richard was Managing Director at RHK, a provider of advisory services to the communications industry, where he led consulting engagements with multinational businesses such as Intel, and Carl Zeiss; research institutions such as Battelle,and Sarnoff Corporation; and a variety of emerging startup companies.
Dr. Caro has particular expertise in the process of transforming technical innovation into successful businesses. He has been a mentor in business plan competitions at UC Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and the Cleantech Open; was a member of the “Entrepreneur in Readiness” program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 2008 to 2012; and in 2013 & 2015 was a mentor in Steve Blank’s course at UCSF: Lean Launchpad for Life Sciences & Healthcare. In 2017 he was the industry expert on a startup team that was selected for, and graduated from, the NIH I-Corps program.
Dr. Caro has been responsible for the development of a number of successful products; and has 24 issued patents. For many years he has been an “occasional” Silicon Valley angel investor. He has deep domain expertise in the fields of agetech; medical devices / healthcare; digital health; telecom; and photonics.
Born and raised in Australia, Richard received a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree from Melbourne University, Australia (1977), and a D.Phil. in experimental physics from Oxford University (1982) — where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 1982 he was awarded an IBM post-doctoral fellowship to work at Stanford University, and migrated to the USA where he has lived ever since.