Johns Hopkins may be synonymous with medicine, making it easy to overlook just how many of its graduates chose to lead corporate boardrooms instead of hospital wards.
Its alumni network has produced a company that sold for $1.1 billion, an enterprise software leader and a cancer diagnostics innovator that was acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars. And that’s even before considering the new roster of founders pitching on campus this summer.
In July, the university held its first Alumni Startup Showcase, where nine alumni-founded startups had four minutes each to pitch at the end of a 20-week accelerator. It was a good reminder that Hopkins founders aren’t confined to one corner of tech.
Lab Benches, Classrooms And Cap Tables
What stands out is how often a Hopkins company grows out of a lab or a design project.
Somnair came out of the university’s biodesign master’s programme, Kubanda began in 2015 as a biomedical engineering design team project, and Personal Genome Diagnostics was started by Hopkins researchers working on cancer genomics.
Others took a different route. Jeong Kim and Sanju Bansal built technology companies from the ground up, while Jess Gartner spotted a gap in how school districts handle money after studying education at Hopkins. Between them, they show there isn’t a single Hopkins route into entrepreneurship.
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Alumni Founders From Johns Hopkins
Here are eight successful founders who graduated from Johns Hopkins University, spanning established exits and startups still in their early days.
1. Jeong Kim, Founder At Yurie Systems
Jeong Kim moved from Seoul to Maryland at 14 and worked nights in a convenience store while attending high school. A partial scholarship took him to Johns Hopkins to study electrical engineering, and he went on to serve seven years as a nuclear submarine officer in the US Navy before earning a PhD in reliability engineering from the University of Maryland.
In 1992, he founded Yurie Systems, which built devices that made sending data and video over the internet easier. Lucent Technologies bought the company in 1998 for $1.1 billion, and Kim later led Bell Labs as its president from 2005 to 2013 before co-founding the mobile video start-up Kiswe Mobile. In 2023, he received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
2. Sanju Bansal, Co-Founder At MicroStrategy
Sanju Bansal studied electrical engineering at MIT before completing a master’s degree in computer science at Johns Hopkins. In 1989, he co-founded the enterprise software business MicroStrategy with MIT classmates Michael Saylor and Thomas Spahr, going on to serve as chief operating officer from 1993 to 2012 and vice chairman until November 2013.
Bansal has kept building since. He started Hunch Analytics in 2013 with Aneesh Chopra, co-founded the healthcare data company CareJourney and is now co-founder and executive chairman of pWin.ai. He has also served as a director at publicly listed companies including CSRA, Cvent, EverQuote, Perspecta and SimilarWeb.
3. Jess Gartner, Founder At Allovue
Jess Gartner taught middle school humanities in Baltimore City and earned her Master of Arts in Teaching from the Johns Hopkins School of Education in 2011. Two years later, she founded Allovue, a Baltimore-based company whose software helps school districts plan, track and evaluate how they spend their money. Gartner says it has been credited with helping create the EdFinTech industry.
Allovue started with a $25,000 investment through the Accelerate Baltimore programme and later raised $800,000. PowerSchool acquired it in January 2024, when the platform was supporting school systems in managing more than $50 billion in annual budgets. Gartner stayed on as a group vice president at PowerSchool until June 2026.
4. Victor Velculescu, Co-Founder At Personal Genome Diagnostics
Victor Velculescu completed an M.D. and a Ph.D. in human genetics and molecular biology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, then co-founded Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx) in 2010. The company was started by Hopkins researchers working on cancer genome sequencing and liquid biopsy technology.
PGDx developed cancer genomics products, including an FDA-cleared kit that profiles solid tumours using a panel of more than 500 genes. In December 2021, Labcorp agreed to buy it for $450 million in cash at closing, plus up to $125 million more if it hit performance milestones.
5. Anders Sideris, Co-Founder And CEO At Somnair
Anders Sideris leads Somnair with fellow co-founders Mitchell Turley, Phoebe Dijour and Shri Prabha Shivram, all of whom earned master’s degrees in biodesign at Johns Hopkins. The company is developing a lightweight, retainer-like device worn in the mouth during sleep that stimulates the nerve controlling the palate and throat muscles to keep the airway open.
It’s aimed at people with sleep apnoea who can’t tolerate CPAP machines, and a proof-of-concept study led by Hopkins physicians reported early results in 22 patients that appear to support the approach. Somnair has raised $4.3 million, reported in September 2025, and says its goal is FDA approval.
6. Bailey Surtees And Clarisse Hu, Co-Founders At Kubanda Cryotherapy
Bailey Surtees (CEO) and Clarisse Hu (CTO) each completed biomedical engineering degrees at Johns Hopkins in 2017, with Hu adding a master’s to her credentials in 2019.
Their venture, Kubanda, originated as a 2015 design assignment. Today, it delivers the CryoNeedle system, using pinpoint extreme cold to resolve lumps, bumps and tumours in animals without scalpel cuts.
The technology was first developed for people and uses carbon dioxide as a lower-cost coolant than argon. Clinical trials were carried out at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Kubanda says it offers its treatment to veterinary clinics across the country.
7. Matteo Petrobelli, Co-Founder And CTO At Gargoyle Systems
After graduating with a master’s from the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering in 2024, Matteo Petrobelli co-founded Gargoyle Systems, where he leads technology as CTO. Its drone detection platform identifies drones, locates both the craft, its operator and records the data.
In July 2026, the company took home the $15,000 Judges’ Choice award at the first annual Johns Hopkins Alumni Startup Showcase, beating eight other startups that each pitched for four minutes.
8. Iris Gupta, Founder At ProCounsel
Iris Gupta graduated from the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering in 2025 and founded ProCounsel. Her platform automates administrative legal discovery work by filtering out irrelevant information, sorting and summarising documents and identifying trends.
The startup has secured around $200,000 in grants, a notable start for a founder so recently out of university. It’s also a sign that Hopkins’ entrepreneurial pipeline now reaches well beyond established names and into the current graduating classes.
