Meet David Perry:
Founder & CEO
focused on health,
food & agriculture
David Perry is an entrepreneur who has founded and built five innovative companies in the last 20 years. He is currently the Co-Founder and Chairman of Better Therapeutics and on the Board of Directors at Evelo Biosciences.
As an early colleague at Chemdex, I was fortunate to witness David's vision and pure creative force. I'd invest in everything David puts his heart and mind to.
"
"
– Jon Callaghan, Venture Capitalist
Mission & Vision
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to take a step back and think about how I wanted to spend the next phase of my career. Over the previous 2-3 years, I had developed an interest in food — how are we going to produce enough, how can we do it sustainably, and how can we help people make food choices that are better for their long term health? I decided to focus on addressing these big questions.
-David Perry
"
"
Climate
David is focused on exploring regenerative solutions to help mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change. At Indigo, David was committed to harnessing nature to help farmers sustainably feed the planet. At Better Therapeutics, he is focused on treating and reversing chronic disease through changes in diet towards healthier, more sustainable foods.
Agriculture
We must feed 10 billion people by 2050. To do this, we will need new technology and approaches to produce more food with less environmental impact.
Food
David is focused on various angles of consumer health including: producing more nutritious, traceable food; and treating and reversing metabolic disease based on how people eat at Better Therapeutics.
David's Journey
David Perry was raised on his family's farm in rural Arkansas. He holds a BS from the University of Tulsa and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He also attended the United States Air Force Academy.
​
In 1995, while at Harvard Business School, David Perry co-founded Virogen, a biotechnology company focused on diagnostics.
​
While at Virogen, he felt that scientists spent a lot of time procuring life sciences products through conventional catalog ordering. So, in 1997, he founded Chemdex, headquartered in California. Chemdex was a business-to-business marketplace focused on the life sciences industry that sold laboratory chemicals and other scientific equipments online. David served as CEO of Chemdex and presided over its $130 million IPO as one of the first B2B eCommerce companies to go public.
​
In 1999, David also created the parent company of Chemdex, called Ventro Corporation, which was later sold to Nexprise. He served as its CEO and President until November 2001. During that time, David was named the 2000 Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California by Ernst and Young.
"David has grown Indigo into a company with a clear mission and the potential to realize remarkable scientific and business value for the world."
-Noubar Afeyan, CEO Flagship Pioneering
In 2002, Perry co-founded Anacor Pharmaceuticals and served as its CEO for twelve years. The biopharmaceutical company was focused on developing novel small-molecule therapeutics to treat infectious and inflammatory diseases. In 2016, the company was acquired by Pfizer for $5.4 billion.
​
In 2015, David became the founding CEO of Symbiota, which was renamed Indigo Agriculture in 2016. Indigo is focused on improving grower profitability, environmental sustainability, and consumer health through the use of natural microbiology and digital technologies. During Perry's tenure, Indigo raised over $1.2 billion in equity with operations in 5 countries and 4 continents across millions of acres. He stepped down from the CEO role in September 2020.
​
In 2015, Perry also co-founded Better Therapeutics, a prescription digital therapeutics (PDT) company delivering a novel form of cognitive behavioral therapy to address the root causes of cardiometabolic diseases. The company uses clinically-validated, FDA-regulated software to change the behaviors that cause these diseases thereby improving quality of life, reducing the ongoing need for medications, and lowering costs. Its products deliver digital behavioral therapy that integrates neuroscience, lifestyle medicine, and explainable AI into a physician-prescribed mobile medical app, and uses patient-generated data to inform clinical decision-making and improve treatment outcomes. Perry currently serves as the Executive Chairman of the board.
Perry also serves on the Board of Directors of the human microbiome company, Evelo Biosciences.
20+
years’ experience building life sciences & tech companies
​
5
innovative companies founded
3
of those companies achieved multi-billion dollar valuations
Areas of Focus
climate
agriculture
food