Our Team

Digilife is a venture capital fund focussed on health care. We specialize in investing and nurturing startups that apply new-age technologies to complex problems in healthcare. We invest in early-stage companies with unique ideas. We are a team of professionals with diverse backgrounds working together to help build great companies that can make a significant impact

Meet The Team

Investment/Operating Team

Venkatadri Bobba

Venkatadri Bobba

DigiLife Founder, General Partner with Ventureast

Pharmacist, Philanthropist and a farmer (model farm in India growing soybeans currently). Migrated to the US in 1972 with spouse and 2 sons. Served as a president or CEO of NYSE, NASDAQ, and Amex-listed companies over 35 years.

venkat-vankayalapati

Venkat Vankayalapati

Partner

A successful serial tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, USA. Over the course of his career, he has founded several companies in fabless semiconductors, optical communications and networking technology domain: Cavera Systems, Catamaran Communications (acquired by Infineon Technologies, AG), V-Logic - A chip design consulting firm that has advised large tech companies like Texas Instruments, Neomagic, Cyras Systems (Ciena Corp.).

Medical Advisory Team

Kathleen Kenny, MD

Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Stanford University

Dr. Kathleen A. Kenny is a distinguished physician and academic with extensive experience in internal medicine and medical advisory roles. She currently serves as a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford Internal Medicine, where she has been a valuable member of the internal medicine academic faculty since 2011. Dr. Kenny is known for her commitment to providing exceptional patient care to a panel of approximately 2,000 patients.

Manesh Patel, MD

Chief of Cardiology, Co-Director Heart Center, Duke University

Dr. Manesh Patel is Chief of the Division of Cardiology and director of the Duke Heart Center. The Division of Cardiology has over 85 faculty and 44 cardiology fellows, and the Heart Center has over 1100 staff. His clinical interests include diagnostic and interventional coronary angiography, peripheral angiography, and percutaneous intervention.

Dr. Rajah Koppala

Dr. Rajah Koppala

Managing Director - Avis Hospitals

A successful interventional radiologist, who owns and manages several hospitals in Hyderabad. Consultant radiologist to hospitals in Bangalore and Chennai. Passionate Digital Health evangelist, who exited a successful tele-radiology business in the past, was an early investor in Portea and founded Celes Care.

Venture Advisory Team

animesh-agarwal

Animesh Agarwal

Vice-President, Product Management, Anumana

Animesh Agarwal has 10+ years of experience in creating products and building businesses, in various areas of the life sciences and healthcare industry. He is passionate about the democratization of healthcare, and believes that technology is vital to reducing the gaps in cost, access, and quality of outcomes.

Cynthia Ekberg Tsai

CEO of Healthquest, CEO of Tana Systems

Cynthia Ekberg Tsai is CEO of Healthquest, a global biotechnology and medical technologies advisory firm, where she specializes in providing strategic introductions and advice to rising executives. She is also CEO of Tana Systems, a global software and IT company

David Upchurch

David Upchurch

VP of Manufacturing – Corcept Therapeutics, USA

David Upchurch is an experienced pharmaceutical executive with over 30 years in the industry. He has held positions of increasing seniority in pharmaceutical manufacturing, clinical and commercial supply chain management for various pharmaceutical companies.

Gopal Kolli

Gopal Kolli

Director of eCommerce at Levi Strauss & Co.

Director of eCommerce at Levi Strauss & Co. Responsible for $300M P/L of Levi’s online sales in North America. Previously, he worked as a Senior Manager at Amazon. Built and grew the online mattress category to $800M in 18 months. Advisor to a China-based Mattress company, Sweetnight.com. Helped them scale US business to $1540M in 42 years.

Dr. John Paglia

Dr. John Paglia

Professor of Finance, Pepperdine Graziadio Business School

Dr. John K. Paglia is a Professor of Finance at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School (PGBS) where he has been on the faculty since 2000. He is also an independent corporate director (board member) and audit committee chair for Simulations Plus Inc. (NASDAQ: SLP) and Aeluma Inc. (OTCQB: ALMU); advisor to a number of private equity and venture funds, and startup companies; and sits on Pepperdine’s Most Fundable Companies Council.

Kiran Yarlagadda

Kiran Yarlagadda

Technologist

Kiran Kumar M Yarlagadda, is a technologist with 20+ years of global experience. He currently works at a bank as a Vice President in the Technology Infrastructure Architecture team with focus on Analytics, Cloud, Converged Infrastructure, Databases and Governance. Prior to this he was the Chief Technology Officer for AuraBlocks, an Oracle Silver partner and a global enterprise Blockchain consulting company delivering services in several key verticals: Financial Services, Federal, Healthcare and more.

Nandhan Puppala

Nandhan Puppala

Head - Ground Truth Operations at Cruise

Nandhan is a seasoned tech executive with a broad range of experience spanning engineering, product management, and operations. Nandhan heads the ground truth operations at Cruise, contributing to the advancement of autonomous vehicles. A specialist in devising systems that generate large-scale data with AI + human intelligence.

R. Sathya Kumar

R. Sathya Kumar

Founder and CEO of Techindia Infoway, India

Sathya is a seasoned Entrepreneur in the Healthcare services sector, specializing in the convergence of affordable care, medical technology, AI/ML/IOT/Data Science, and Advanced analytics. He is driven by a profound commitment to lifelong learning.

Rama Krishna Donepudi

Rama Krishna Donepudi

Chief Information Officer, Global Nutrition

Rama Donepudi is an accomplished strategic IT leader with a 20-year track record of leading large-scale business transformation projects for various Fortune 500 clients in Consumer Healthcare and packaged goods industries. He has made significant contributions by establishing high-performing teams for Reckitt Benckiser in various locations such as Hyderabad, Warsaw, Mexico City and Parsippany, focusing on areas including innovation, marketing/eCommerce, data analytics and global shared services. Since 2021, Rama has been serving as the CIO for Global Nutrition.

Vamsi Maddipatla

Vamsi Maddipatla

Founder and Chairman of LAXAI Pharma Ltd

Vamsi is a seasoned global professional with a remarkable journey spanning across three continents - South Africa, the US, and India. With over 25 years of expertise as a management consultant and serial entrepreneur, Vamsi brings a wealth of knowledge in diverse domains. His career has been defined by a passion for business administration, strategic planning, and executing complex global M&A transactions.