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Jay Schmelter is a co-founder and managing director of RiverVest Venture Partners, where he leads the firm’s investment strategy and operations and guides CEOs to accelerate medical device products through development and into the marketplace.
I am proud of the team we've built at RiverVest and the many successes we've had funding and founding life science companies. It is incredibly rewarding to enable entrepreneurs to develop novel technologies and introduce them to the marketplace, potentially transforming the quality of life for patients around the world.
Jay W.
Schmelter
CO-FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
CO-FOUNDED RIVERVEST IN 2000
Jay Schmelter co-founded RiverVest in 2000, leveraging his experience in investment banking, early-stage venture capital investing, and medical device product marketing to build a venture capital firm in the heart of the Midwest’s emerging life sciences market. As a managing director, Jay leads the firm’s investment strategy and operations. He also serves as a sounding board for medical device company CEOs, offering advice on company strategy and operating plans.
Jay serves as a director on the boards of Alleviant Medical and InterVene and is a former director of Accumetrics (acquired by Instrumentation Laboratory – a Werfen Company – in 2013); IDEV Technologies (acquired by Abbott Laboratories in 2013); Lutonix (acquired by C.R. Bard in 2011); and Velocimed (acquired by St. Jude Medical, now a subsidiary of Abbott Laboratories, in 2005). Additionally, Jay is the former chairman of Salient Surgical Technologies (acquired by Medtronic in 2011) and a former board observer of Standard Bariatrics, acquired by Teleflex (NYSE: TFX) in 2022.
Before co-founding RiverVest, Jay was with Crescendo Ventures, where he led investments for the firm’s life science division. While at Crescendo, Jay founded Salient Surgical Technologies, later acquired by Medtronic. Prior to his transition to venture capital, Jay worked as a medical device research analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., where he focused on cardiovascular-related medical device stocks. He was also a marketing executive for Medtronic, Inc., where he was responsible for two successful product launches and the marketing activities of two of Medtronic’s US cardiac surgery-related businesses.
Jay earned an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a B.A. in Accounting from Michigan State University.