Since 1998, Mr. Gifford has been a Managing Member of The Foundry, LLC. The Foundry has created Evalve (acquired by Abbott Labs), Concentric Medical (acquired by Stryker), Emphasys Medical, First to File, Satiety, Xtent, Cierra Medical, Ardian (acquired by Medtronic), Cabochon (acquired by Ulthera/Merz), Miramar Labs, Twelve (acquired by Medtronic), Holaira, Cotera, and Fire1. Mr. Gifford is also a founder of ForSight Labs, an ophthalmic device incubator which has started six companies. Prior to The Foundry, Mr. Gifford was VP of Research and Development at Heartport, Inc. Mr. Gifford is an inventor on over 225 issued U.S. patents. He has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University.