Company and Leadership
What are the benefits for inventors and universities in working with VIC Foundry?
The VIC Foundry team has extensive technology commercialization experience and success. Working with our team can help steer technology development in the most impactful and commercially-promising directions. Access to SBIR and STTR funding is provided without the inventor needing to form a separate new company, which is time-consuming, distracting from the university research, while carrying significant costs and risks.
When the grant-funded development work goes as planned, a new company is formed to commercialize the technology with private equity funding ensured. VIC has a strong track record for successfully commercializing university technologies. The inventor takes a technical advisor role in the new company and can receive equity and consulting compensation.
For universities, it is an opportunity for licensing technologies that otherwise may never be licensed due to the stage of development at the university. Universities can benefit from subcontracted work back to the university, and from having a much higher chance of substantial licensing revenue compared to a typical faculty or student-led startup.
What are the benefits for investors?
For the VIC Investor network, the VIC Foundry provides an additional source of high-quality deal flow and de-risks highly promising technologies. It allows deeper insights prior to VIC making the go/no-go decision on a new start-up to commercialize the given technology.
Key Management

Calvin Goforth, PhD – Chief Executive Officer

Xiaoli Su, PhD – Senior Scientist

Natalie Gassman, PhD – Senior Fellow

Michael Gaspar, MD – Fellow
Mike Gaspar graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Biological Engineering before obtaining his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia. After completing his surgical internship at Loyola University Medical Center-Chicago, he underwent further surgical training as an orthopedic surgery resident at Albany Medical Center. Followed by an academic fellowship in hand and upper extremity surgery at Thomas Jefferson University’s Philadelphia Hand to Shoulder Center (PHSC). Where he subsequently spent more than five years as the Director of Clinical Research and Undergraduate Medical Education. During that time, he also completed an executive M.B.A. from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. for his work developing a novel treatment algorithm to treat ulnar neuropathy at the elbow and recently founded M-Squared Healthcare Solutions, LLC, a boutique healthcare consulting company based in Washington, D.C.
Mike has been awarded several research fellowships at institutions including PHSC, the Hand Rehabilitation Foundation, the Anderson Orthopaedic Clinic and the Hospital for Special Surgery, and has received funding from the NIH, NSF and Arthritis Foundation as well as from industry. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and has served as an ad hoc reviewer for 20 international medical journals. He was honored as a Top Doctor Under 40 by the Pennsylvania State Medical Society in 2018 and named to their Opioid Task Force in 2020. He has also served as a consultant and advisor to the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL Players Association.

Evan Goldberg, PhD – Fellow

Secondra Holmes, PhD – Fellow

Gurshagan Kandhola, PhD – Fellow

Kelly Mabry, PhD – Fellow

Cristhiaan Ochoa, MD, PhD