Bernhard Kappe

Founder & CEO Orthogonal

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

Bernhard Kappe is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Orthogonal, a Chicago software development consultancy he started in 2011 under the name Pathfinder Software. The firm works in one of the harder corners of software: building Software as a Medical Device, digital therapeutics, and connected medical device systems, where the product must satisfy FDA regulatory requirements as well as users. Kappe’s distinctive argument is that regulation and iterative development are not actually in conflict — that lean startup practice, design thinking, and Agile delivery can be applied inside a regulated quality system, in an industry whose default remains long waterfall cycles. He arrived at this from an unusually varied background spanning investment banking, engineering at Microsoft and Starbucks, and a previous software company of his own.

Career Highlights

• Founded Orthogonal (originally Pathfinder Software) in 2011 and continues to lead it as CEO.
• Built a specialist practice in Software as a Medical Device, digital therapeutics, and connected care systems combining devices, sensors, mobile, and cloud.
• Applies lean startup, design thinking, and Agile methods within FDA-regulated product development.
• Founder and President of Cobre Software, a multi-dimensional analytical reporting software company.
• Former M&A at Merrill Lynch, and a software developer and consultant for Microsoft, Starbucks, MetLife, and the City of Seattle.
• Mentor at Healthbox and organizer of Chicago Lean Startup, with 15-plus years in the Chicago startup community.

Professional Journey

Kappe grew up in a family of mathematicians, and by his own account was drawn less to the elegance of mathematics than to how ideas could be put to practical use. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania along a deliberately multidisciplinary path spanning mathematics, business, computer science, and philosophy — a combination that maps closely onto the work he does now, which requires holding technical, commercial, and regulatory reasoning simultaneously.

He began his career in mergers and acquisitions at Merrill Lynch before moving into software development, working at Microsoft and Starbucks and later consulting for clients including Microsoft, Starbucks, Metropolitan Life Insurance, and the City of Seattle. He then founded Cobre Software, where he served as President, building multi-dimensional analytical reporting software.

In 2011 he founded Pathfinder Software, later renamed Orthogonal, and focused it on connected medical technology. The thesis was that medical devices were becoming systems rather than objects: an insulin pump, a cardiac monitor, or an inhaler increasingly ships alongside a mobile application, a cloud backend, and a data pipeline, and the software is as much the product as the hardware. That shift created demand for development teams who understood both modern software practice and the regulatory apparatus governing medical devices, and relatively few firms could offer both.

Orthogonal built its practice around Software as a Medical Device and digital therapeutics, working with medical device startups and established manufacturers to design and build connected care systems. Kappe has been a consistent public advocate for the position that regulated development need not be slow — that iterative delivery, user research, and continuous validation can be reconciled with a design history file and FDA submission requirements, and that treating regulation as a reason to avoid iteration produces worse and less safe products rather than better ones.

Alongside the firm he has been a durable presence in Chicago’s startup ecosystem for more than fifteen years, mentoring at the healthcare accelerator Healthbox and organizing Chicago Lean Startup.

Education

University of Pennsylvania

Undergraduate study, Mathematics, Business, Computer Science, and Philosophy