Catalyst Capital Symposia

Wellness & Nutrition Symposium

Date:
9/17/2025 1:30 PM
-
8:00 pm
Location:
10918 Technology Pl, San Diego, CA 92127

🤯Discover the latest breakthroughs in health and wellbeing at the Wellness and Nutrition Symposium!

Join experts, nutritionists, and wellness advocates as they delve into cutting-edge research and innovative practices that promote a healthier lifestyle. From understanding the science behind nutrition to exploring holistic wellness approaches, this symposium is your gateway to enhancing both physical and mental health.

📌Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain valuable insights and practical tips for living your best life.

#2025CatalystCapitalSymposia #Aquillius

Register

Agenda

1:30 PM

Check-in / networking

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Roundtable Discussion

  • Table Host: Sue McKinney, JD
    • Title: “Leveraging Ancient Botanicals as Drugs to Solve Unmet Medical Needs”
  • Table Host: Dr. Nicole Torosin, PhD, CPT, CNC
    • Title: "Investing in Wellness Innovation category"
  • Table Host: Elmira Mesgarha
    • Title: "How to Improve Body Composition Through Blood Sugar Management"
  • Table Host: Rose Bowlus, Esq.
    • Title: “Investment and Funding Legal Structures, Equity Considerations, and Investor Protections in Wellness and Nutrition Startups”.
  • Table Host: Andrew Brackenbury
    • Title: Marketing

4:00 PM - 4:15 PM

Break

4:15 PM - 6:15 PM

Startup Showcase

6:15 PM - 8:00 PM

Networking, Happy Hour, Startup Market

Prizes

1st place Therapeutic and Medtech winners will receive the following prizes:
  • $5,000 Tax Services
  • $20k in office/lab space
  • Digital Marketing and Branding Services (worth $5,000)
  • $10K in office/lab space
  • $25k custom UX design package from the largest femtech incubator in the US
  • $5,000 Legal Services
  • Exploratory biostatistics package: 3 reports
  • Membership to Mayo Clinic Innovation Exchange
  • Regulatory kit and Regulatory strategy consulting (Medical Device only)
  • $5,000 Legal fees
  • Two months campaign on startup program
  • 3-day ticket to the upcoming 2025 RESI Conference
  • Contingent Permanent Placement ($5,000 off); Retained Search services ($5,000 off)
  • $5,000 of tax services
Medtech winner will also receive the following prize:
  • 6 month Growth subscription and services package (worth up to $14K)

Learn from Subject Matter Experts

Dr. Nicole Torosin, PhD, CPT, CNC

Founder/CEO, GNR8 Personal Training

Dr. Nicole Torosin, is the founder of GNR8 Personal Training. Her interest in the intersection of genetics, people, places, and things led her to obtain a PhD in Genetic Anthropology. Her dissertation focused on the evolution of yellow fever virus where she studied a population of howler monkeys that had been exposed in Argentina. One day over lunch she came up with the idea to combine her passion for genetics, fitness, and helping people become their healthiest selves into a business of her own. After extensive research and earning her NASM certifications, she founded GNR8! Her unique background has equipped her with the tools to understand each client as a whole person, using their genetics, lifestyle, mindset, and motivations to create a tailored program to achieve their goals. Training is available in person or online and Nicole is there to support each client through every step of their fitness journey.

Charlotte Sue McKinney

CEO & Founder, Altin Biosciences

As CEO of Altin Biosciences, I lead a team of doctors, scientists, patient advocates, successful FDA regulatory and drug development experts, and pharmaceutical business specialists dedicated to creating a paradigm shift in primary uterine fibroid treatment and women’s health innovation. With a Composition of Matter patent for a non-hormonal, noninvasive botanical drug candidate, that qualifies under the FDA Botanical Drug Guidance fast track, we are dedicated to the commercialization of a first-in-blass botanical drug set to capture the market in a $42.2B problem.

Elli Mesgarha 

Board Certified Health Coach 

My name is Elli and I am a NBC-HWC Board Certified Health Coach. In my college years, I completed a Business degree in Entrepreneurship with a vision of owning my own business one day. Upon graduating, I started a lucrative career in Finance at a fortune 100 company. During my 10-year career, I held multiple positions in different business management functions which helped me learned many important skills. My passion for health and wellness sparked with a health crisis of my own. After the birth of my first child, there were unforeseen circumstances which caused additional stress to my life. The chain of events led to my diagnosis of an auto-immune disorder which was very uncomfortable. As a new mom, I was unable to carry my own child without assistance which was heartbreaking. I went to an auto-immune specialist and got medication to manage my symptoms. The medication helped relieve my pain; However, I didn’t like the idea of taking it for the rest of my life. I started doing research about what I can do to help my condition. I came across a celebrity nutritionist’s book which changed my life. After fallowing her advice and changing my lifestyle habits, I was able to completely heal my auto-immune disorder which led me to come off the medication.

Rose Bowlus, Esq.

Founder, Rose Bowlus Law APC

Rose Bowlus is the Founder and Attorney at Rose Bowlus Law (RBL), specializing in securities, commodities, and financial services. The firm provides strategic legal guidance to businesses ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Through RBL, Rose also serves as outside general counsel for a SaaS platform in the energy tech and renewables space. Prior to founding RBL, Rose was in-house counsel for major financial institutions and energy companies, including Wells Fargo, PNC, and Sempra Energy. With over 20 years of experience, she advises C-suite executives on legal strategy, compliance, and department infrastructure. Rose speaks at industry events on corporate law and ethics and serves on the boards of SunLaw.org, Lawyers Club of San Diego, and Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy. She is an angel investor, mentors entrepreneurs through Techstars Boulder and other accelerators, judges competitions, and supports diversity initiatives in the legal and tech communities.

Andrew Brackenbury

Principle, The BRAX Group

Andrew is a med tech professional originally from the SF Bay Area who moved to North County San Diego in 2022. He has worked with numerous med device companies from start ups to market leaders with experience in cardiovascular devices, renal denervation, genomics, proteomics and radiation oncology. He has a passion for biomonioring and digital health wearables and specializes in product strategy, product management, product marketing and market development. Andrew currently runs a health tech consulting practice called The BRAX Group and serves growing organizations preparing for commercialization.

MC/MODERATOR

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STARTUP SHOWCASE

Jason Karp
CEO
KASI is a smartphone and smartwatch application that puts a sophisticated coach in runners’ ears, coaching them while they run. By leveraging real-time biometric data and AI coaching technology, KASI provides an immersive, personalized training experience that’s the closest thing to having a human coach. And if the runner already has a human coach who is far away, KASI revolutionizes remote coaching, enabling the coach to observe the athlete’s workout and coach him or her in real-time, even without being in person.
Loganathan Doraisamy
CEO
Revolutionize healthcare and address health and wellness via preventive age-reversal with natural molecules and superior technology in a wholistic multi-pathway approach and limit FDA approved treatments to short term symptom management.
Moneisha White
Founder/Operations Manager
White labs Concierge Lab Services offer a convenient, mobile lab collection solution designed to streamline the process for individuals and businesses. Our proposition lies efficiency and speed, accuracy and reliability, customization and and support, and convenience and flexibility.
Charlotte Sue McKinney
CEO, Founder
The annual direct and indirect costs of uterine fibroids in the USA is estimated to total $42.2 Billion USD. All current drug treatments impair fertility, are hormone-based, have significant risks, toxicity and side effects. Our solution solves this problem!
Liliana Lettieri
Business Lead
Pixun makes the first display-screen backlit by the sun, reducing both energy waste and negative health effects from current LED monitors.
Adam G. Southam
Founder & CEO
Food for Health™ is the world’s only patented personalized precision Food-as-Medicine Software-as-a-Service, leveraging unbiased, peer-reviewed, third-party clinical studies to calculate cumulative efficacy across multiple co-morbidities. We solve the problem everyone has in determining what foods are good or bad for them with speed, ease, precision, clarity, and certainty.
Dr Kulvinder Kaur
Founder and CEO
Unlocking the Hidden Biology of Human Potential
Subhi Marwari, PhD
Founder & CEO
Harnessing nature, unlocking markets, advancing minds. 

JUDGES

Jeff Berman

Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Big Tree Innovation Fund

Jeff works with companies and management teams that share a passion for growth and value creation. He helps new ventures develop differentiated products and services, accelerate digital workflows, and implement new operating models to disrupt markets and industries. Before Co-Founding Big Tree, Jeff was Managing Partner of Grant Thornton's National Healthcare, Life Sciences business. Prior to that was Vice President & Partner of IBM Healthcare Transformation & Strategy business.  He also held executive roles at PwC and Johnson & Johnson and was an Entrepreneur and Founder of a SaaS cloud platform that exited through M&A.

Education: B.S. Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University; M.B.A., D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University; Strategy & Transformation Certificate, Harvard Business School; Advanced Leadership Program Certificate, Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management

Bhawanjit K. Brar Ph.D.

CEO and Founder, Jaan Biotherapeutics

Dr. Brar founded Jaan Biotherapeutics in 2015, following 7 years at Zensun USA, where she held various positions including the Vice President of Clinical Research, managing a United States Phase 2 clinical trial for a first in class therapeutic for the treatment of heart failure. Dr. Brar completed her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Swansea University in Wales and a Ph.D. in Physiology/Endocrinology from the University of Reading U.K. Dr. Brar has served as a consultant for many years helping companies to develop therapeutics through clinical testing before founding Jaan Biotherapeutics. Dr. Brar is an inventor/co-inventor of numerous patents targeting MicroRNAs to treat heart disease.

Siddharth Kapur (Kaps)

Quantum Consumer Solutions

Kaps is a seasoned marketing leader and growth architect with over 17 years of experience building and scaling challenger brands across global giants like Unilever and Danone.He brings deep consulting expertise, having partnered with startups to unlock growth through sharp business and brand strategy. An active angel investor and board advisor, Kaps supports startups across diverse categories and geographies, helping them scale with clarity and conviction.‍

Christopher V. Gnanakone

Founder of AI based Startup (Stealth), Nutritional Epigenetics and Longevity 

Chris is a 3 X Entreprenuer, with 2 exits and one running. Over the past 27 years, Chris has been engaged in technology based startups, technology accelerators (investor), mentoring entrepreneurs and non profit initiatives / programs such as land mine clearing and children’s nutrition. In the past 6 years, Chris has transitioned to learning nutritional bio chemistry, functional and lifestyle medicine, evolutionary and cellular biology leading to a startup (stealth), author of a book (to be published in 2026) and commenced outlining the framework to produce a documentary film on health and wellness. It is based on many constructs that enhances fellow human beings not only to thrive but live to be healthy centenarians. He is driven by the realization that the most important calling of our lifetime is the health of people on a global scale.

Smriti Sinha

CEO, Natural Healing House 

Smriti Sinha (Sims) is an AI-first investor, entrepreneur, and product innovation leader with 20+ years of experience scaling businesses at the intersection of health and wealth. As CEO of Natural Healing House, she drove 40% revenue growth through AI-enabled digital transformation in the regulated wellness sector. Previously, she launched multi-million-dollar products and strategic partnerships at Prudential Financial and American Express, blending financial services, healthtech, and consumer engagement. An active angel investor and advisor, Sims supports early-stage founders in AI, wellness, and financial services, partnering with VCs and innovation hubs to bridge innovation to market adoption and deliver measurable impact at scale.

Richard Lin

Principal, Lin Ventures

Richard, trained as a PhD scientist in cancer research, has over 30 years of experience in biotech drug development and biotech startups. He founded Explora BioLabs, a laboratory-as-a-service company, after working as a research scientist for several biotech companies in San Diego. After bootstrapping its startup, Richard served as its CEO and grew the company organically to seven facilities in San Diego and the Bay Area and eventually led a successful exit and sold the company to a private equity search fund. Richard currently serves as an analyst at Aquillius Ventures. He is also an angel investor and an advisor/mentor in more than a dozen early-stage companies.

Pratik Doshi, MD, MS

Cardiology Fellow, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center

Pratik Doshi, M.D., MS is a physician, entrepreneur, and healthcare innovator passionate about leveraging technology to expand access to high-quality care. Throughout his career, he has combined clinical expertise with business strategy to drive meaningful change in healthcare. He is a nationally recognized leader in digital health, medical innovation, and the application of data science to real-world care delivery. He has led multiple venture-backed health tech and medical device startups in clinical operations, business development, and AI/ML integration. He is also a prolific researcher, having published over 30 peer-reviewed articles in leading medical journals including NEJM, the Lancet, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.  

Judges

Jeff Berman
Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Big Tree Innovation Fund
Bhawanjit K. Brar Ph.D.
CEO and Founder, Jaan Biotherapeutics
Siddharth Kapur (Kaps)
Quantum Consumer Solutions
Christopher V. Gnanakone
Founder of AI based Startup (Stealth), Nutritional Epigenetics and Longevity 
Smriti Sinha
CEO, Natural Healing House 
Richard Lin
Principal, Lin Ventures
Pratik Doshi, MD, MS
Cardiology Fellow, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center

Sponsors

Startup Market

Innovative products from local founders

The Startup Market is a unique marketplace designed to promote local startups. The market provides founders with the opportunity to showcase their products and to sell directly to consumers.

Interested in a booth at the symposium?

Catalyst Capital Symposia

IMPACT

Activating Startups

Catalyst Capital Symposia is a platform connecting founders and funders to catalyze innovation.

This monthly forum provides a unique opportunity for participants to gain valuable insights into emerging sectors and disruptive technologies that have the potential to revolutionize human health, the environment, and society.

Through engaging discussions, informative panels, and interactive workshops, aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs and investors can learn about essential concepts, strategies, and best practices directly from industry experts.

By engaging the venture and startup ecosystem, the symposia encourages investors to be activists and empower startups with cutting-edge technology.
BECOME AN
INVESTOR-ACTIVIST

Investing in Startups

Stay ahead of the curve by joining us at the Catalyst Capital Symposia, where you can gain valuable insights into emerging technologies, spanning various industries, from tech and healthcare to sustainability and beyond.

Join the ranks of investor-activists who not only provide financial backing but also lend their expertise, networks, and influence to nurture startups, catalyzing a collective effort towards a brighter, more innovative future.


FUNDRAISING
&
RESOURCES

Startups: Apply to Pitch

Are you ready to supercharge your innovative startup? Don't miss this golden opportunity to bring your vision to life!

Pitch your startup to an audience of industry experts, colleagues, and seasoned investors to gain valuable insights and feedback, forge strategic partnerships and connections, secure vital funding for your pioneering project, and elevate your startup to the next level!

Apply to pitch at one of the upcoming symposiums.
SPONSOR

Connecting with Potential Customers

Position your organization as a corporate sponsor and connect with a deeply engaged audience of investors, entrepreneurs, and industry experts.

Sponsorship at Catalyst Capital Symposia provides a range of advantages, such as heightened brand visibility, lead generation, networking opportunities, thought leadership, and early access to emerging technologies.

To explore the ways in which your company can benefit from sponsoring our event, reach out to us for more information.
SPONSOR

Be a Champion of Women's Health

Want to make an even bigger impact? Consider becoming a sponsor for Casino Night! As a sponsor, you'll receive prominent recognition at the event, on our marketing materials, and across our digital platforms. Sponsorship packages offer a unique opportunity to align your brand with a cause that resonates with so many.