Al Kapoor

Al Kapoor is an investor and entrepreneur focusing on investments in private optics and photonics firms that can outperform as publicly listed companies. Al Kapoor has engaged in finding, acquiring, and growing optics and photonics companies since 1997 as a technology entrepreneur immediately after graduating from Harvard Business School. Within nearly 18 months of graduation, he found and acquired his first advanced manufacturing company in Rochester, New York, renamed it Syntec Optics, transformed it into a defense, medical and consumer optics, and photonics leader and accelerated growth with add-on acquisitions. This deep technical and business experience has led to diverse relationships in the optics and photonics ecosystem – suppliers, customers, end-users, venture capitalists, private equity managers, entrepreneurs, and executives.
Al runs an app called PioneeringMinds with a fortnightly newsletter on future industries with over 100,000 circulations to executives around the country. He continues to invest in optics and photonics, from driverless cars, robotics, virtual reality, sensors to terabit internet.
He is also on the advisory council for MIT’s program to train and educate the workforce for new disruptions in the area of integrated photonics. Al has been invited to the White House to participate in innovation policy discussions on several occasions. Al studied various engineering and business disciplines at five universities and holds an MBA from Harvard University and MS from Iowa State University.