Analysts evaluate business plans, perform competitive analysis, test financial assumptions, and engage in deal due diligence. Analysts witness the venture funding process from beginning-to-end, coached by investors. They get broad exposure to the active tech startup scene in Los Angeles and deal directly with the founders, CEOs, and investors as TCA Los Angeles evaluates hundreds of new startups each year.
Meet our Analysts
Meera Ramakrishnan
Meera Ramakrishnan is a recent graduate of the California Institute of Technology, where she studied Mechanical Engineering and Business, Economics, and Management. While at Caltech, she started and developed a diabetes application to help physicians manage diabetic patients more efficiently and effectively. Her career interests include entrepreneurship, strategy (M&A), and venture capital investing; Meera hopes to combine her business and engineering backgrounds to create and commercialize innovative solutions globally. Having been admitted to Harvard Business School in 2018 through the 2+2 program, Meera will be attending HBS in 2022.
Meera@techcoastangels.la
Mira Boora
Mira Boora is currently an MBA candidate at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. She is pursuing her MBA with a specialization in technology and global management. She has worked in the financial technology industry for the last nine years in relationship management and sales roles, most recently as a sales engineer at a payments company while also running a small e-commerce company on the side. She has worked in Vancouver, London, Toronto, Sydney, and San Francisco. Her career interests include product management, entrepreneurship, and to learn more about angel investing.
mira@techcoastangels.la
Yue Wang
Yue Wang is currently an MBA candidate at UCLA Anderson. Prior to joining UCLA, she has gained broad experience in market research, statistics, and M&A. She views herself as a growth-driven professional and she possesses a successful track record of continuous process improvement and business growth with data-driven solutions. Yue is good at building great work relationships with culturally diverse, and cross-functional teams. She holds Masters’ degrees in Environmental Engineering and Statistics.
yue@techcoastangels.la
Joe Labes
Joe Labes is a first year UCLA Anderson MBA student. Prior to his MBA, Joe spent 4 years consulting at ZS Associates where he specialized in go-to-market, growth, and commercialization strategy for biotech companies. Joe also co-founded Sake High!, a canned sake brand out of LA, that will be launching this summer. Joe is active in the LA start-up community and has helped many companies strategize and execute their funding initiatives.
joe@techcoastangels.la
Max Northrop
Max Northrop is a junior at the University of Michigan where he is studying neuroscience and pursuing a minor in business from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business. In addition to his role at TCA, Max is engaged in clinical research at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. In his research, he has studied how to implement cutting-edge sequencing technology into targeted cancer treatment, genetic links to childhood cancers, and oncoviruses. He has also served his community as an Emergency Medical Technician, by tutoring high school students, and fundraising for medical research. As an analyst, Max strives to combine his love for science, technology, and entrepreneurship to sponsor innovation.
max@techcoastangels.la
Janet Lee
Janet Lee is an MBA candidate at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Before business school, she started two businesses, a tech-forward real estate brokerage and international trade & logistics company. Her MBA focus is venture capital, for which she was recently awarded the Deutschman Venture Fellowship. Prior to her entrepreneurial ventures, her first love was the health sciences and she performed wet lab lung cancer research for four years at USC, resulting in a paper published in the American Association for Cancer Research journal. She currently holds a Master's degree in Global Medicine and Bachelor's Degree in Health Promotion from USC's Keck School of Medicine. Her creative hobbies include hip hop dance and performing as a SAG actor with speaking roles on shows like “Grey’s Anatomy”, “This is Us”, “Shameless”, and on commercials with brands like McDonalds, Infiniti and Sony. Learn more about her here.
janet@techcoastangels.la
Vishnu Amaram
Vishnu Amaram Vishnu Amaram is currently a PhD Candidate at City of Hope Medical Center, ranked as the top cancer hospital and research center in the west coast by US News. He holds a prestigious pre-doctoral fellowship from American Heart Association (AHA) to conduct his doctoral research. He has a strong background in bio-medical research with experience in clinical diagnostics and oligonucleotide therapeutics research. In addition to research, he is passionate about the growth and development of biotech start-up companies. He provided successful marketing and business development strategies for a home testing diagnostic kits manufacturing company and a pre-clinical contract research organization. Vishnu is looking to hone his business skills through the TCA Volunteer Analyst Program to transition into a venture capital. Vishnu holds a BS in Chemistry from Sri Krishnadevaraya University and a MS in Biochemistry from JIPMER, India.
Vishnu@techcoastangels.la
Mike Catania
Mike Catania is an entrepreneur and MBA candidate at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where he is a Levine Fellow in Real Estate Entrepreneurship. He has co-founded several proptech companies, including Locaris, a startup that qualifies tenants through an alternative to credit scoring. Prior to Locaris, he was the co-founder and CTO of Stone River, an e-commerce platform that grew to $2M in revenue in its first 18 months. He serves as an Innovation Fellow for the VA of Greater Los Angeles, where he teaches design thinking. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Music Composition.
mike@techcoastangels.la