Our leadership team is made up of a distinguished group of doctors, executives, managers, and entrepreneurs.

Managment Team & Investment Committee
We are a team of investors with success as investors, operators, and entrepreneurs, with a disciplined investment approach to identify and develop promising companies to maximize investor returns
We know what it takes to bring a product to market and make it a winner.

INVESTMENT COMMITTEE

Internationally recognized leader in corneal, cataract, refractive and laser surgery

Serves on numerous editorial boards and partner and founder of Tyson Eye.

Delivered 300+ invited lectures and CEO & Founder of Visionary Eye Institute.

CEO of OCTANe. Former Blackstone operating partner

International lecturer on retinal diseases. Founder of the California Retina Research Foundation

Managing Partner, Founder, Head Investment Banking at Jefferies & Co.

INVESTMENT COMMITTEE

Internationally recognized leader in corneal, cataract, refractive and laser surgery

Serves on numerous editorial boards and partner and founder of Tyson Eye.

CEO of OCTANe. Former Blackstone operating partner

Managing Partner, Founder, Head Investment Banking at Jefferies & Co.

Delivered 300+ invited lectures and CEO & Founder of Visionary Eye Institute.

International lecturer on retinal diseases. Founder of the California Retina Research Foundation

Fund Management

Jeffry Weinhuff

Managing Partner

Visionary Venture Fund

Jeffry Weinhuff is the managing partner of Visionary Venture Fund, a later-stage venture fund  focused on investing in drugs and devices for the eye. Visionary employs a unique approach to venture investing  by partnering with over 75 Key Opinion Leader Ophthalmologists, as well as other sophisticated investors and industry professionals. In Visionary’s eleven portfolio companies, the combination of KOL insights and professional investment approach reduces risk and enhances predictable returns. Visionary works closely with senior eye care professionals in the fast-growing 40 Billion ophthalmology industry located in Orange County, Ca, the global headquarters of the industry.
Mr. Weinhuff has been active in the private equity  realm for over 30 years.  At Jefferies & Co.,  the premier mid-market investment bank, he founded the Investment Banking and Capital Markets groups, served  as Head of Investment Banking,  was a Member of the Board of Directors, and Head of the Commitment Committee. Prior to Jefferies he  was a Partner at Drexel Burnham Lambert, where he founded and co-headed the Buyer Advisory Group  and served on the Underwriting committee.

Daniel Gil, PhD.

Venture Partner

Visionary Venture Fund

Dr. Gil has had a 30+ year career in Pharmaceutical R&D. He is currently CEO of Pelage Pharmaceuticals, which is developing a topical hair growth treatment. As VP, Research Technologies and Portfolio at Allergan, he served as co-chair of the Early Stage Governance Board that oversaw preclinical to early phase 2 clinical development, chaired the Research Portfolio Committee, and directed the Medicinal Chemistry, Biologics and translational pharmacology research groups. His research resulted in 13 drug candidates and he led 8 clinical development projects in the areas of Ophthalmology, Neuroscience and Dermatology. He is an inventor on more than 70 issued US patents and author on 42 peer-reviewed research articles. Dr. Gil has an undergraduate degree in Biology from Harvard University and a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Perry Sternberg

Venture Partner

Visionary Venture Fund

Perry brings to Sydnexis over 30 years of commercial leadership including oversight of more than 20 product launches across a wide range of therapeutic areas and markets. His tenure in eye care spans 15 years across Novartis, Bausch & Lomb, and Shire where he was responsible for the U.S. commercial organization and managing the company’s product portfolio in five franchises. Perry led the build-out of the Ophthalmic business unit and launch of Xiidra® in 2016, the first FDA-approved treatment for the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease. Perry was a key member of the leadership team responsible for the sale of Shire to Takeda in January 2019, and subsequently, the successful launch of Xiidra led to its sale by Takeda to Novartis in May 2019.

Garrett Hamontree

Partner & CFO

Visionary Venture Fund

For the past eight years Garrett Hamontree has helped develop Visionary Venture Fund into the most active investor in the Ophthalmology space.  Mr. Hamontree is responsible for due diligence of potential investments with a focus on valuations and market potential, assisting in negotiating and executing transactions, as well as the ongoing management of the portfolio companies. Additionally, he leads the work with the fund administration team at Carta as well as the audit and tax work with BDO.
Mr. Hamontree has assisted with M&A transactions of IanTech, Tear Film Innovations, ONL Therapeutics, and Aurion to Zeiss, Alcon, JNJ, and Alcon respectively, as well as the diligence and IPO work for Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, cumulatively creating nearly $3B in value from the five companies. Mr. Hamontree brings significant subject matter expertise in the Ophthalmology Industry along with a diverse investment perspective across biotech and medical devices. Through his career at Visionary, he has been influential with venture capital strategic planning, decision making, and capital raises at Visionary’s numerous portfolio companies. Mr. Hamontree is a board member for Re-Vana Therapeutics and board observer to ONL Therapeutics, IanTrek, Orasis, Sydnexis, Tarsus (previous), and Tear Film Innovations (previous).
Prior to joining Visionary, Mr. Hamontree was CEO and President of Bridgemark where he invested private equity and debt in a variety of private market transactions to grow operations and assets across the United States. Growth at Bridgemark was centered around the idea of building a team of experts from various backgrounds to help source deals and to perform due diligence on potential transactions. Prior to Bridgemark, Mr. Hamontree was a project manager for Chevron leading major capital projects.
Mr. Hamontree holds a Master’s in Business Administration with a focus on Finance and Data Science from University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and a Bachelor of Engineering from Vanderbilt University.