SPACE SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS

Moradi, Mike

Mike Moradi

Co-Founder & General Partner
Cortado Ventures

Mr. Moradi is a VC investor and entrepreneur, who left dental school to start his first company. That company failed, but was followed by many successful ventures in nanotechnology and biopharmaceuticals. Mike is a co-founder and general partner at Cortado Ventures, a top-decile early-stage VC firm managing 130m AUM across two funds, and expects to raise its 3rd core fund and a space-tech sidecar fund in 2026. Mike is a co-founder of Sensulin, a diabetes-focused biopharma company, and was previously a co-founder and CEO of a pharmaceutical company targeting ocular complications of diabetes. He also co-founded a specialty Contract Research Organization (eyeCRO), which was the #264 fastest growing private company in the Inc. 500. He co-founded Nanopolaris (now Unidym), which was acquired in 2011 by a publicly traded South Korean company for $145M USD, and NanoSource, which was acquired by DuPont in 2002, largely considered the first major acquisition in the nanotech space. Mike was a trustee for the $14B USD Oklahoma Pension Employees Retirement System (OPERS), and a member of the audit committee. He is an advisory board member for the Health Finance Institute, a director of Grand Founders, a regular attendee of the flagship TED conference, and the World Economic Forum in Davos. He holds a degree in biochemistry from the University of Oklahoma, with additional coursework from the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University, Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. Mike was named to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2017-2022 class of Young Global Leaders (YGL), a 2025 Karman Pioneer, and also a 2024 Kauffman Fellow (KF Class 29). Mike is also a displaced person whose family settled in the US when he was very young. 

Related Sessions

Salon Breakfast: Oklahoma Department of Commerce

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

7:15 am - 8:30 am

Track: