Primary Job Title Managing Director, Co-Founder Primary Organization 
Essex Woodlands Healthcare Partners
Location Palo Alto, California, United States Regions San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, West Coast Gender Male
Investor Type
Marty Sutter is one of the two founding Managing Directors of Essex Woodlands. Educated in chemical engineering and finance, he has more than 30 years of management experience in operations, marketing, finance and venture capital.
Mr. Sutter founded and managed The Woodlands Venture Capital Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitchell Energy
& Development Corporation, and The Woodlands Venture Partners, an independent venture capital partnership. During his tenure with both organizations, he founded a number of successful healthcare companies originating from various institutions of the world renowned Texas Medical Center. As a consequence of numerous co-investments with Jim Currie, Mr. Sutter merged his venture practice with Essex Venture Partners, founded by James Currie, to form Essex Woodlands Health Ventures in 1985.
Mr. Sutter has been directly involved with more than 30 of Essex Woodlands portfolio investments, and has served on numerous Boards of Directors of public and private companies including portfolio companies ATS Medical (acquired by Medtronic), BioForm Medical (acquired by Merz GmbH), LifeCell (acquired by Kinetic Concepts), St. Francis Medical (acquired by Kyphon [Medtronic]), Confluent Surgical (acquired by Tyco [Covidien]) and Rinat Neurosciences (acquired by Pfizer).
Mr. Sutter currently serves on the Board of Directors of Abiomed, QSpex Technologies and Bioventus. In addition to the portfolio company boards on which he serves today, Mr. Sutter serves on the Board of Trustees of The Culinary Institute of America and was the past Chairman of The Texas Lyceum.
Mr. Sutter holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana State University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Houston.
