uc-irvine
(3)
Ray Liu
Ray Liu is the CEO and co-founder of Vena Vitals, an Irvine, California medtech startup building a soft, skin-like sticker that tracks blood pressure continuously, beat by beat, without cuffs or invasive arterial lines. A National Science Foundation fellow turned operator, Liu spent two decades inside GE Healthcare, Siemens, and Vizient, and racked up two health-tech exits before reuniting with a former Berkeley labmate, UC Irvine professor Michelle Khine, and PhD scientist Josh Kim to turn a material-science breakthrough into a clinical product. Backed by Y Combinator, MedTech Innovator, and EvoNexus, Vena Vitals has tested its sensor on 600-plus patients in operating rooms and is targeting FDA clearance in 2026.
Ali Sabeti
Ali Sabeti is the CEO and cofounder of Zerocater, the San Francisco food-tech company turning corporate cafeterias and catering programs into data-driven hospitality. A UC Irvine accounting summa cum laude who came up at Salesforce while it scaled from 5,000 to 30,000 people, he now runs a 180-person company that survived losing 98% of its business in the pandemic, tripled revenue in 2022, and raised a $15M Series C in 2023 to wire the hybrid office's lunch hour with AI-personalized menus and 450+ supplier partners.
Karan Kanwar
Karan Kanwar is the co-founder and CEO of Wing Assistant, a managed virtual assistant marketplace that grew from his UC Irvine dorm room to over 1,000 employees across 8 countries and $20 million in annual revenue. Born in Mumbai and raised in Hong Kong, Kanwar speaks five languages, started coding at age 8, and previously consulted for Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and the United Nations before building Wing into one of the fastest-growing B2B staffing platforms in the US.