Ian Bund

Partner, Principal, Senior Adviser, and Chairman

Mr. Ian R. N. Bund, BEc, MBA, is a General Partner at Innovation Capital. He co-founded the firm in 1999. Mr. Bund is the Partner, Principal, Senior Adviser, and Chairman of Plymouth Venture Partners. He founded the firm. He formed the first institutional venture capital firms in Michigan and has led or co-led 13 funds. He has participated in the successful development of several other firms including Research & Science Investors; Doan Associates; The Michigan Investment Fund; and MBW Venture Partners. Mr. Bund has played a founding or lead role in 11 venture capital partnerships in New York, Michigan, and Australia including the first three institutionally financed partnerships in Michigan. Through these partnerships and on his own account Mr. Bund has played a role in building over 350 companies and investees have included Lifescan, Stratacom, Ventana Medical, Birtcher, and Neogen. Successful exits include 34 initial public offerings and numerous strategic sales such as Ventana Medical Systems I, Promega, Lifescan, Birtcher, Stratacom, Neogen. These investments comprised a wide range of industries including biotechnology, healthcare, information, telecommunications, and computers. His prior experience includes investment banking at Morgan Stanley & Co. and Michigan Corporation and actively managing businesses at UCB and as the President at Sea Life Park. Mr. Bund is a Director at freightPro, Inc and CleveX. He was also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at White Pines Ventures. He began his career in audit, accounting, tax, and business advisory services at Price Waterhouse & Co., Sydney, Australia. Mr. Bund has been active in the venture capital trade associations, community organizations, lectures in the University of Michigan M.B.A. and Executive Education programs, and is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurial, economic development, capital access, and formation topics. He has also led or participated in numerous buyout, recap, succession, and turnaround investments as an investor and also as hands on Manager. Mr. Bund has close ties to over many venture capital and private equity funds in America and was recognized as the “Leaders & Best” at the 2006 University of Michigan’s Michigan Growth Capital Symposium. His Harvard thesis, “Strategic Planning in the Investment Banking Industry” was published privately in 1969. He received the lifetime achievement award at the sixth annual Crain’s Detroit Business M&A Awards in 2013. Mr. Bund brings financial and technology expertise to the firm across different stages of investment cycles. His expertise spans the areas of life sciences, biotechnology, medical products and services, information technology, and telecom. Mr. Bund has been involved in venture capital and private equity investing, and building companies since 1969. During his private equity career, Mr. Bund has been an investor in, and assisted in the building of many companies, over 30 of which have listed on NASDAQ. He is the dean of Michigan’s VCs. Mr. Bund is an Australian Chartered Accountant. He received an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1968 and a Bachelor of Economics degree from the University of Sydney in 1964.