Moving Forward After The Founder Passes Away

Dr. Sonia Sousa was inspired to co-found Kenzen when her brother was diagnosed with stage-4 cancer after having been given a clean bill of health three months earlier. Stage 4 means the cancer has spread from where it started to another body organ. Her brother passed away four years later.

Dr. Sonia Sousa, cofounder, Kenzen


As a scientist working in a life-sciences company, she had used saliva as a means to detect the early onset of ovarian cancer. As an MBA, she recognized the huge business opportunity of using noninvasive monitoring technology, such as sweat analysis, to indicate that something wasn’t quite right with someone’s health.

Sousa quit her job and teamed with Steve Pecko, an expert in product user experience (UX/UI), marketing and branding. He had pricked himself tens of thousands of times since being diagnosed at the age of 3 with type 1 diabetes. He understood from firsthand experience just how important noninvasive measurement could be. In 2014, they founded Kenzen to develop wearables to measure physiological signals — heart rate, body temperature, motion, and sweat.

Early on, funding came from Swiss innovation grants. Sousa was half Swiss and had a lot of scientific contacts in Switzerland. The company’s R&D is based there, a group managed by Kenzen COO Edith Schmid. The team recognized that they needed money to commercialize. They brought on Heidi Lehmann to help the company raise equity financing. Lehmann had been working in the consumer wearable space to launch connected device products into the market. Kenzen caught her attention because, in 2016, it had won 1st and Future, the startup pitch competition hosted jointly by the NFL, Stanford, and TechCrunch. The original market entry was looking at heat-related illness in athletes.

“Sonia had health challenges, but nothing life-threatening,” explained Lehmann. However, at the beginning of 2018, before a call with an investor, Lehmann was asked to fill-in because Sousa had a medical emergency.  

The company was raising a bridge round before their Series A round when Sousa unexpectedly went into the hospital. “We were still a very young company,” said Lehmann. At this stage, investors are investing in the vision and passion of the founder. As the lead scientist and CEO, Sousa was that person.

Sousa had already assembled the right team. They stepped up and stepped in. Pecko knew the product and had the passion. Jim McDonnell, CTO at Kenzen, was named president and CEO. His prior experience at Cisco helped scale their healthcare data business. Nora Levinson had been hired as chief product officer for her expertise in product management of wearable devices. Rounding out the fundraising team is Lehmann as the chief commercial officer.

Updates about Sousa were that she would make a triumphant return, including an optimistic report a week before her passing in May. Her death was a shock to the entire company, its partners and investors — one that they are still recovering from. However, the team is more committed than ever to realizing Sousa’s vision. “Sonia's vision of using technology to improve the health and lives of others will remain the foundation of Kenzen,” wrote Pecko on the company’s blog.

The day after Sousa passed away, the team was scheduled for an investor-pitch with the Sofia Fund, an angel investment firm that invests in women-led companies. Kenzen needed the capital because it had signed more customers than budgeted for. The company had expanded its sensing solutions into industrial markets in which workers could be exposed to heat-related injuries. Kenzen was now deploying pilots with a Fortune 50 industrial in the US, an industrial conglomerate in the UK, and a top Japanese construction company. It had a revenue pipeline of about $25 million. It had also won a seat in the first ever Cleveland Clinic accelerator program and Swiss hospitals were also testing the technology.

The team chose to keep the meeting. “Sonia would have wanted it that way,” Pecko recalls. Lehmann reached her contact at the Sofia Fund to explain the situation. She was advised to tell the Kenzen story first, then to address the passing of a critical member of the team. Not only did the Sofia Fund join the round, but so did W.L. Gore – a deal Sousa had been negotiating all along. “All money is transformational, but this money signaled a belief in the team Sonia had assembled and alignment with her vision,” said Lehmann.

Telling stories and sharing Sousa’s vision has been very important in helping the team to heal. At the company’s "All Hands" meeting, employees gathered videos, photos, and memories of their interactions with Sousa – all of which was recorded and provided to her family, her partner, and two sons. Kenzen operates across Switzerland, San Francisco, and New York. Sousa used to say “I’m Brazilian [half Brazilian and half Swiss]. I like to see people.” And as such, video conferencing has made it easier for the team to stay connected.

How can you prepare your company for the loss of a key player?

