Jonathan Mercado is a Principal at First Bight Ventures, an early-stage venture fund backing industrial biotechnology and biomanufacturing companies working to scale biological systems into real commercial infrastructure, from chemicals and materials to food ingredients and agriculture.
His path to venture runs through the lab and the field. Jonathan earned his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Baylor College of Medicine before spending years in commercial roles in pharmaceutical biomanufacturing, where he worked closely with the researchers and operators turning biological discovery into deployable technology. That experience gave him a grounded sense of what it actually takes to bridge science and scale.
At First Bight, Jonathan works with founders who are serious about building, not just discovering. He comes to the summit to connect with the people doing the same.