Bio

Robert D. Auritt founded Brant Point Partners in 2006 and serves as its President. He has been involved in the launch, building and sale of a number of successful companies, both operationally as a CFO and CEO and, for more than 20 years, as a venture capitalist, private equity investor and advisor to privately held businesses. Brant Point’s most recent transaction was the sale in April 2016 of portfolio company Acme Cryogenics to private equity firm Graham Partners. Prior to founding Brant Point, Bob was a partner at MVP Capital, a lower middle market private equity firm investing in healthcare, media/publishing, aviation and other industries. Earlier, Bob founded and ran a venture capital firm based in Minneapolis from 1988-1994, with a notable investment in Select Comfort Corp. (the Sleep Number™ bed—$500K in early stage sales to $1.2 billion annually.) From 1981—88 Bob was a pioneer participant in the biotechnology sector, serving as CFO and later co-CEO of MGI Pharma, one of the first 5 leading biotechnology / genetic engineering firms. Bob was instrumental in transforming the company from an agricultural biotech to human pharma focus. MGI was eventually sold to Eisai Co., Ltd. in 2008 for $3.9 billion on the strength of its oncology products. Bob has served on many private company boards, including Acme Cryogenics (precision-engineered products and field services for the production, distribution, and storage of cryogenic liquids and industrial gases), Northern Contours (kitchen cabinet doors, bath and closet cabinet doors, work surfaces and custom store fixtures) and Instrumental, Inc. (high-performance computing services for classified clients—sold to Seagate). Bob is recognized as a national expert in public broadcasting, having served on the boards of Minnesota Public Radio for 10 years and WHYY (TV and radio) for the past 19. He has been board treasurer and finance committee chairman at both organizations. At Minnesota Public Radio he was board member of a for-profit subsidiary which built a giftware business eventually sold to Target Corp. for over $100 million. Bob earned his A.B. with honors at Harvard College in 1974 and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1979. At Harvard, Bob was captain of the freshman soccer team and played varsity, including on the 1970 NCAA Division I elite eight team. Bob was also a member of the U.S. national soccer team in the World Maccabiah Games (Tel Aviv) in 1973.