Kobi Richter: Medinol Founder and Stent Pioneer

The Builders | Olam.business

Dr. Jacob (Kobi) Richter co-founded Medinol in 1992 with his wife Dr. Judith Richter and built the NIR stent — the flexible coronary stent that reshaped interventional cardiology globally. Before Medinol he co-founded Orbotech (Nasdaq), and before that he was a fighter pilot and squadron commander in the Israel Air Force with a documented aerial-combat record.

Two companies, one founder. The first listed; the second deliberately stayed private. Medinol has shipped over 2 million stents and holds 400+ patents. Forbes Israel has reported Richter as a dollar billionaire. He almost never gives interviews.

Snapshot

Born	Israel; raised partly on kibbutz Ramat Yohanan
Education	B.Sc. Physics & Computer Science, Tel Aviv University; M.Sc. Electrical Engineering, MIT; Ph.D. Medical Engineering, MIT; postdoc MIT AI Laboratory and Brain Research Department
Military	Israel Air Force fighter pilot and squadron commander; recognized for aerial-combat record
First company	Orbotech — co-founder; computerized vision and optical inspection for printed circuits; Nasdaq-listed; acquired by KLA in 2018 for $3.4B
Main company	Medinol Ltd. — co-founder and Chairman; private; Tel Aviv
Wife and partner	Dr. Judith Richter — co-founder and CEO Emeritus of Medinol
Sector	Interventional cardiology, medical devices, AI drug discovery, energy storage, neuroscience
Civic record	Cardiac Council, Columbia University Medical Center; Advisory Board, MIT Center for Brains, Minds and Machines

The Business Story

Richter's first commercial chapter was Orbotech. Co-founded in the 1980s, Orbotech built computerized optical inspection systems for printed circuit boards and became one of the foundational Israeli semiconductor-adjacent companies — listed on Nasdaq, market value of approximately $800 million at the time of his 2001 Haaretz profile, and a multi-billion-dollar business by the time KLA acquired it in 2018 for $3.4 billion. Richter served on Orbotech's board, led product development, and held founder equity.

In 1992, with Dr. Judith Richter, he co-founded Medinol in Jerusalem. The company developed the NIR stent — a flexible coronary stent introduced in 1996 that fundamentally changed the mechanics of how stents were delivered through the coronary arteries. Where earlier stents were rigid and difficult to navigate through curved vessels, the NIR design articulated and conformed.

Medinol's founding distribution agreement with Boston Scientific made the NIR stent a global product. By the early 2000s, Medinol was the most profitable Israeli company by some measures, with an estimated valuation between $2.2 billion and $2.5 billion. Richter held the controlling stake.

The Boston Scientific dispute reshaped the story. Richter accused his American partner of breach of trust and of building a competitive plant in Ireland using Medinol know-how — contrary to the contract between them. The litigation ran for years. The case became one of the most consequential cross-border medical-device disputes of its era and is still cited in business-school curricula on partnership structure and IP control. Medinol retained its independence.

The company has remained private through every subsequent cycle. Fully integrated — research, development, regulatory affairs, clinical trials, manufacturing, marketing, and sales all conducted in-house. Over 2 million stents shipped to date. Over 400 patents. Richter served as CTO and Executive Board Co-Chairman until recently attaining Emeritus status; he continues to lead long-range research direction.

He has also been an active angel investor. Board positions at Quris AI (AI-driven drug discovery), Nostromo Energy (water-based grid-scale energy storage), and QuantalX (neurodiagnostics). His investment thesis tracks the same pattern as his operating career: deep technical conviction, long holding periods, narrow vertical focus.

Why Richter Matters in Israel

Richter is the rare Israeli founder who built two foundational companies in two different categories — semiconductor inspection and interventional cardiology — and chose to keep the second one private through its entire run. That decision is consequential. Medinol's competitors went public, got acquired, or were folded into bigger device companies. Medinol stayed independent for over three decades, a peer pattern to Mori Arkin's private healthcare-capital arc.

The biographical arc — kibbutz, fighter pilot, MIT scientist, founder, billionaire — is part of why his name appears in Hebrew financial press regularly and almost never in English Wikipedia at a substantive level. He gives almost no interviews. The 2001 Haaretz profile by Ari Shavit remains one of the very few long-form English accounts of who he is.

He sits at the rare intersection of operator and scientist. The Cardiac Council at Columbia. The Advisory Board at MIT's Center for Brains, Minds and Machines. The investments in AI drug discovery and neurodiagnostics map directly onto his MIT-era research footprint.

What Medinol Does Today

Medinol designs, manufactures, and markets advanced cardiovascular intervention products. Fully vertically integrated. R&D, manufacturing, quality control, regulatory affairs, clinical trials, and global commercial distribution — all in-house. The product portfolio extends beyond the original NIR architecture into next-generation drug-eluting stents and bifurcation-treatment devices.

Sister companies include VALVE Medical and Microtech, developed inside the Medinol research orbit.

Richter's Key Holdings

Medinol — co-founder, Chairman, CTO Emeritus
Orbotech founder equity (Nasdaq position; KLA acquisition 2018 at $3.4B)
Quris AI — board member; AI-driven drug discovery
Nostromo Energy — board member; water-based behind-the-meter energy storage
QuantalX — board member; neurodiagnostics
VALVE Medical, Microtech — sister medical-device companies inside the Medinol research orbit

Richter's Legacy and Influence

The NIR stent is the product that made flexible coronary stents the global standard of care. Over 2 million Medinol stents shipped. The downstream literature in interventional cardiology — bifurcation treatment, drug-eluting platforms, deliverability metrics — traces back to design principles Medinol pioneered.

The other piece of the legacy is structural: Richter kept Medinol private through three decades of medical-device consolidation, declined the easy exit, and continued to compound the platform. For a generation of Israeli health-tech founders weighing whether to sell early or build long, Medinol is the case study for the latter.

Why Richter Matters Now

Interventional cardiology is in the middle of its next platform transition — bioresorbable scaffolds, AI-guided procedural planning, and integration with structural-heart workflows. Medinol's research orbit is positioned for that transition. The investments in Quris AI and QuantalX overlap directly with where AI-driven medical innovation is heading.

The Israeli health-tech category is also at an inflection point. The 2025–2026 wave of healthcare AI funding has produced more Israeli-founded operators in drug discovery, diagnostics, and devices than any previous cycle. The Medinol playbook — deep technical conviction, controlled growth, private ownership — is being reread by founders trying to figure out how to build durable platforms rather than fast exits.

FAQ

Who is Kobi Richter?
Dr. Jacob (Kobi) Richter is the co-founder, Chairman, and CTO Emeritus of Medinol — the Israeli interventional cardiology company that developed the NIR stent in 1996. He previously co-founded Orbotech (Nasdaq-listed, acquired by KLA in 2018 for $3.4 billion). Before his commercial career, he was a fighter pilot and squadron commander in the Israel Air Force.

What is Medinol?
Medinol Ltd. is a Tel Aviv-based interventional cardiology company that pioneered flexible coronary stents in the 1990s. Co-founded in 1992 by Dr. Judith Richter and Dr. Jacob (Kobi) Richter, the company has shipped over 2 million stents and holds 400+ patents. Medinol is privately held and fully vertically integrated.

What was the Boston Scientific dispute?
Richter accused Boston Scientific, Medinol's original American distribution partner, of breach of trust and of building a competitive stent manufacturing operation in Ireland using Medinol know-how. The litigation became one of the most consequential cross-border medical-device disputes of the early 2000s. Medinol retained its independence.

What is the NIR stent?
The NIR stent, introduced by Medinol in 1996, was a flexible coronary stent design that conformed to the curvature of the coronary arteries. It became one of the most widely deployed coronary stent platforms globally and is the foundation of the modern flexible-stent category.

What companies has Kobi Richter co-founded?
Two principal companies: Orbotech (semiconductor and PCB inspection, Nasdaq-listed, acquired by KLA in 2018) and Medinol (interventional cardiology, private). He also serves on the boards of Quris AI, Nostromo Energy, and QuantalX as an angel investor.

Why doesn't Kobi Richter give interviews?
By personal preference. He has consistently declined press engagement throughout his career, with the 2001 Haaretz profile by Ari Shavit standing as one of the few long-form English accounts of his work.

מי הוא קובי ריכטר? מייסד מדינול שבנה את הסטנט ששינה את הקרדיולוגיה

ד"ר יעקב (קובי) ריכטר ייסד את מדינול ב-1992 יחד עם רעייתו ד"ר יהודית ריכטר, ובנה את סטנט ה-NIR — הסטנט הכלילי הגמיש ששינה את הקרדיולוגיה הפולשנית בכל העולם. לפני מדינול הוא היה שותף בייסוד אורבוטק (נסד"ק), ולפני כן טייס קרב ומפקד טייסת בחיל האוויר עם הישגי קרב אוויר מתועדים.

שתי חברות, מייסד אחד. הראשונה הונפקה; השנייה נשארה פרטית במכוון. מדינול שיווקה מעל 2 מיליון סטנטים ומחזיקה ביותר מ-400 פטנטים. פורבס ישראל סיווגה את ריכטר כמיליארדר דולרי. הוא כמעט אינו מתראיין.

The Olam Editorial Team | The Builders / הבונים

Kobi Richter: The Medinol Founder Who Built the Stent That Reshaped Cardiology