Sam Santhosh is an entrepreneur with a 35 year track record of creating successful companies in the United States and India. For the first 20 years, Sam was in the IT industry and made his mark by setting up California Software Co Ltd (Calsoft) and taking it public in India. In the last 15 years, Sam led the Genomic revolution in India by incubating and launching multiple companies leveraging Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Bioinformatics, through his incubator SciGenom Labs in Kochi and San Francisco. Sam incubated MedGenome in 2010 and over the next 10 years, raised $120M from leading venture capital companies like Sequoia, Sofina, Leapfrog and IFC. Sam established MedGenome as the leading genomic diagnostics and research company in India and he is often called the 'Genome man of India'.
Currently, Sam continues to incubate startups in SciGenom labs and promote genomic research and education through SciGenom Research Foundation (SGRF), a non-profit Trust that he established in 2011. His main passion now is in creating a medical plant garden based on the 17th century magnum opus 'Hortus Malabaricus' (Garden of Malabar) at his hometown of Trichur, Kerala.
Sam is a mechanical engineer with an MBA from IIM Calcutta. He maintains homes at San Francisco and Kochi while continuously traveling across the world visiting museums, archeological sites and botanical gardens.
India’s growing economy, business friendly policies and the availability of new technologies have inspired thousands of youngsters to create their own startups. However, the first-time entrepreneurs face numerous challenges in their entrepreneurship journey. From deciding the right time to start, to raising funds and get to a successful exit is a journey filled with unexpected bumps and ditches. Indian entrepreneurs face even more challenges as our culture is often at odds with the norms of Western business practices. With over 35 years of experience in starting and building successful companies in the fields of Software and Genomics, both in the U.S and in India, Sam Santhosh provides practical guidelines for creating and sustaining successful ventures useful not only to entrepreneurs, but also to all players in the startup ecosystem. Sam believes that India’s destiny lies in the hands of its entrepreneurs, who can be empowered to succeed by a better understanding of India’s ancient culture that subconsciously influences and shapes their decision making.
Sam also shares his vision for India’s growth and explains how India can become a leading global power by leveraging the ‘Bio-wave’. Sam predicts that the developments in Genomics, Proteomics and Synthetic Biology will not only create the next economic revolution, but also change ‘life’ as we know it. With a blend of history, science, business and humor, the book hopes to inspire and guide the next generation of Indian entrepreneurs.
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