Evan Schnell

Venture Partner

Evan Schnell is a Venture Partner at Kaleida Capital, where he brings 25+ years of experience building and commercializing clinical-grade software systems across brain-computer interfaces, neuromodulation, and large-scale healthcare infrastructure. He is currently the Director of Medical Device Software at Axoft building software for clinical trials of the Fleuron™ iBCI to unlock new treatments for patients suffering from neurological disorders. He was most recently Senior Director of Software at Synchron, where he scaled the company’s software organization from Series B through Series D. At Synchron, Evan spearheaded the development of LLM-driven communication tools for nonverbal patients, creating new interfaces between neural signals and generative AI systems. He established partnerships with Apple, NVIDIA, and Amazon, helping shape emerging standards for neural data privacy and real-time brain–computer interaction.

Prior to Synchron, he was a Principal Software Engineer at Medtronic, where he contributed to the development and commercial launch of the Percept™ DBS system, including BrainSense™, the first closed-loop deep brain stimulation platform. Earlier in his career, he held senior architecture and leadership roles at McKesson and RelayHealth, scaling enterprise platforms serving tens of millions of patients. Evan holds an MBA from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. At Kaleida, Evan advises on NeuroAI, BCI, and regulated digital health opportunities, with a focus on regulatory strategy, software architecture, and commercialization. 

    • Pioneer in neural data privacy framework design — repositioned Synchron's privacy architecture to eliminate HIPAA exposure while preserving clinical research data access; primary voice on privacy and cybersecurity across a 200+ person R&D organization at Medtronic 

    • Early contributor to Health Level Seven Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (HL7 FHIR) and FHIRCast standards, now foundational to healthcare software interoperability

    • Named first McKesson Fellow in over five years - cited for rare combination of deep technical skill and strategic market thinking

    • FDA regulatory strategy innovator — identified novel pathways to minimize regulatory burden for algorithm calibration in hybrid Class III medical/consumer wireless BCI systems, accelerating market entry 

  • AI & Industry Transformation

    • AI in action: beyond experimentation to transform industry. Contributor | World Economic Forum (2025)

    Medtronic (Patent)

    • Interactive clinician reports for medical device therapy. Inventor (Published 2024)

    • Brain stimulation and sensing. Inventor (Issued 2024)

    Change Healthcare LLC (Patent)

    • Methods and apparatuses for improving failure recovery in a distributed system. Inventor (Issued 2026)

    • Methods and apparatuses for improving the utilization of state machines in a distributed system. Inventor (Issued 2026)

    • Method and apparatus for implementing a task plan including transmission of one or more test messages. Inventor (Issued 2017)

    Synchron (Patent)

    • Systems for controlling one or more devices using a signal control unit. Inventor (Published 2025)

    • Axoft - Current Director of Medical Device Software leading the software stack for global clinical trials of the Fleuron™ iBCI as the company advances toward FDA approval. 

    • Synchron - Former Senior Director of Software overseeing the software organization through the company's growth from Series B to Series D, spanning the establishment of key industry partnerships and the launch of native Apple device integration via the BCI-HID protocol. 

    • Apple BCI-HID Protocol - Key contributor to the native BCI input standard enabling hands-free, voice-free Apple device control for people with paralysis

    • Synchron × NVIDIA - Instrumental in the partnership that led to the Chiral™ cognitive AI demonstration at GTC 2025

    • Percept™ DBS Clinician Programmer -  Principal Software Engineer through FDA approval and commercial launch; underlying platform named a TIME Best Invention (2025)

    • Horizon Surgical Manager - Chief Architect; deployed to 500+ hospitals as a leading departmental EMR

    • McKesson × Azure - Led technical negotiations on one of healthcare's first large-scale HIPAA-compliant public cloud agreements

    • Domains: Brain-Computer Interfaces, Medical Device Software, Clinical AI, Health Data Interoperability

    • Strengths: FDA-regulated software development, Neural data privacy & security, AI governance, Cloud infrastructure for regulated healthcare

    • Networks & Memberships: World Economic Forum (WEF) AI Governance Alliance, Implantable BCI Collaborative Community (iBCI-CC), University of Minnesota (UMN) Carlson School of Management (MBA)