You don’t want a medical diploma to see that well being tech is sizzling proper now.
Amazon’s $3.9 billion acquisition of One Medical, a community of primary-care clinics, made it clear that expertise firms have massive plans to remodel the healthcare trade. Alphabet, the mum or dad firm of Google, has two separate subsidiaries (Verily and Calico) growing instruments and coverings to battle illnesses and getting old.
And the Apple Watch in your wrist is full of health-focused options together with coronary heart and sleep monitoring, medicine administration, and, as of this month, a physique temperature sensor to assist ladies observe ovulation cycles.
The following technology of breakthroughs are positive to be much more consequential, as startups harness cloud computing, A.I., and ever tinier chips to dream up new services and products.
For the enterprise capital traders who focus on well being tech, the period of startup innovation is spurring a frenzy of exercise. The variety of VC investments in well being tech has elevated considerably in each measurement of valuations and variety of offers prior to now 5 years, and a few massive VC corporations are rolling out particular funds devoted solely to well being tech. In 2018, well being tech VC offers raised $21.3 billion over 2,249 offers. In 2021, deal values totaled $50 billion throughout 3,315 well being tech offers.
Fortune surveyed the sphere of well being tech enterprise traders to select a few of the prime dealmakers within the sector. The eleven traders beneath are among the many most lively in Pitchbook’s database of the most important well being tech funding offers over the previous 5 years. The traders signify a variety of organizations, from massive, common function VC corporations like Andreessen Horowitz, to specialised, well being tech-focused boutiques like Arch Enterprise Companions and Oak HC/FT.
Learn on to satisfy the VC traders with their fingers on the heart beat of the well being tech trade.
Hemant Taneja, Common Catalyst
Courtesy of Common Catalyst
Age: 47
Dwelling base: Bay Space, California
Huge offers: Livingo; Commure, Ro Well being
To say that Taneja is the VC who wrote the e book on well being tech isn’t any exaggeration — he’s co-authored three books about his imaginative and prescient for healthcare as accessible, proactive, and inexpensive. Because the strategist behind a few of Common Catalyst’s most profitable investments so far, Taneja has put his healthcare philosophy to work. His early wager on Livongo, a digital well being startup, became the most important exit in well being tech in historical past after the corporate was acquired by Teledoc for $18.5 billion in 2020.
Taneja describes Livongo’s success as a “catalyzing occasion” within the trade. “There’s many founders and entrepreneurs that bought impressed to construct firms that observe Livongo’s mannequin.” He’s additionally an investor in Commure, Ro, and Transcarent. Taneja just lately grew to become the CEO of Common Catalyst, a task so current it’s not listed on their web site but, however comes after he has more and more spearheaded the agency’s funding plans. “It’s an exceptional time to get into constructing firms within the healthcare sector,” he says. “It’s a chance to form what the subsequent technology of healthcare techniques goes to seem like.”
Vijay Pande, Andreessen Horowitz
Courtesy of a16z
Age: 52
Dwelling base: Menlo Park, California
Huge offers: Devoted Well being (led $300 million collection B), Insitro, Freenome
When Pande joined Andreessen Horowitz in 2014 with the bespoke title “Professor in Residence,” the then 5 12 months previous enterprise capital agency was cautious of healthcare investing. However after recognizing some startups he was enthusiastic about, Pande satisfied agency co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz to “go massive into the house.” In 2015, a16z, because the agency is usually referred to, launched its first $200 million Bio fund with Pande on the helm. The exponential progress of every fund since then speaks for itself; a16z is now on its fourth — a $1.6 billion fund. Pande led the $300 million collection B funding spherical into Devoted Well being, a digital well being startup centered on Medicare beneficiaries. The 2018 funding was one of many largest so far within the sector, and Pande credit the power of the startup’s founding workforce and its distinctive enterprise mannequin. Amongst Pande’s different massive hits are investments in Freenome and Insitro.
Ameena El-Bibany, Artis Ventures
Courtesy of Artis Ventures
Age: 31
Dwelling base: San Francisco, California
Huge offers: Precision Nanosystems, Loop Genomics, Apama Medical
El-Bibany describes her position in well being tech enterprise capital as “bridging the hole between academia and trade.” It’s a activity she’s ideally fitted to. Having centered her analysis on stem cell engineering, microbiome analysis, and DNA harm and restore as a scholar, El-Bibany bought sidetracked from her aim of pursuing a Phd when a chance arose to affix Rising Tide VC in 2014. She constructed the agency’s total well being tech and biotech follow. From there, she was hooked on investing.
Her first funding ever was in Precision Nanoystems, which was acquired by Danaher Life Sciences final 12 months. Different key investments she has made are in Loop Genomics which was acquired by Factor Biosciences and Apama Medical, which was acquired by Boston Scientific. El-Bibany doesn’t view her wins as solely monetary successes, and cites advances in healthcare as a driving motivation. Her recommendation to startups? Begin with the issue, not the answer. “Oftentimes, we see fascinating expertise that’s constructed after which groups seek for an issue to unravel it with,” she defined. “Different instances, we see groups which have very nicely characterised the issue at hand, after which construct a technological resolution to repair it. I normally encourage groups to do the latter,” El-Bibany says.
Annie Lamont, OAK HC/FT
Courtesy of Annie Lamont
Age: 65
Dwelling base: Connecticut
Huge offers: Athenahealth, VillageMD, Devoted Well being
When Lamont bought into enterprise capital within the Eighties, the well being tech investing discipline as we all know it didn’t exist. “There was nobody else that was specializing in [healthcare],” she says. “So I made that kind of my experience and follow.” As a pioneer within the sector, Lamont has set a excessive bar for many who have adopted, with greater than thirty investments in a few of the most extremely valued well being tech firms so far. The VC agency that Lamont began in 2014, Oak HC/FT, was the lead investor in VillageMD, which now has a $14.3 billion valuation. Lamont was additionally an early investor in Athenahealth and the most important investor on the time of Athenahealth’s IPO; the corporate bought final 12 months for $17 billion. She was additionally an early investor in Devoted Well being, Aspire Well being, which was acquired by Anthem, and OncoHealth which was acquired by Arsenal Capital Companions.
Lamont says crucial consider a startup’s success is the folks. “It’s actually concerning the resourcefulness, relentlessness, and the expertise of the CEO after which the workforce,” she says. And many years after serving to spark investor curiosity within the sector, Lamont is extra optimistic than ever: “Now we’ve got multi-generations of entrepreneurs who’ve grown up in healthcare and perceive it higher and are creating higher fashions that can have extra impression on the true prices and high quality of healthcare.”
Helmy Eltoukhy, Inexperienced Sands Fairness
Courtesy of Helmy Eltoukhy
Age: 43
Dwelling base: San Francisco, California
Huge offers: Synchron, Encoded
A two-time startup founder, scientist, and electrical engineer, Eltoukhy brings a wealthy breadth of expertise to his position as the top of life science investments at Inexperienced Sands Fairness. In his twenties, Eltoukhy constructed a startup that merged semiconductor expertise with DNA sequencing, promoting it just a few years later to Illumina. He finally parlayed his expertise to backing different entrepreneurs. “There was a dearth of traders within the healthcare facet that had expertise of founding firms from the thought stage and taking all of them the way in which to an exit or IPO and into a typical of care,” he says.
He was an early investor in Synchron, an organization conducting the primary mind pc interface and Encoded, a therapeutics firm that makes use of genetic engineering. Eltoukhy says success in well being tech comes from not solely having an incredible thought, however from an concept that matches the second. “In healthcare, timing is every part as a result of the timelines are so lengthy,” he defined. “Some issues that sound like nice concepts could also be too early to develop due to regulatory hurdles or expertise that’s too early to develop, so it’s essential to know the place a discipline is about to take off and investing on the proper time,” he says.
Robert Nelsen, ARCH Enterprise Companions
Wealthy Fury—Getty Photographs
Age: 59
Dwelling base: San Francisco, California
Huge offers: Altos Labs, Resilience
With an astonishing observe document of prescient investments, and a aptitude for making massive, generally controversial, pronouncements, Nelsen is a novel determine throughout the world of well being tech tech. Of the greater than 150 firms he has been concerned with, 48 have reached valuations above $1 billion. His philosophy, he instructed Geekwire in 2016, is “to wager on nice science, take dangers with threat takers, deal with massive issues, and to disregard conference.”
As Managing Director and co-founder of ACH Enterprise Companions, Nelsen focuses on well being tech and pharmaceutical investments. He led the collection B, C and D funding rounds in Resilience, a biomanufacturing startup that goals to hurry up deployment of vaccines and different medicines. He was additionally an early investor in Juno Therapeutics which was acquired by Celgene and Array BioPharma which was acquired by Pfizer. In March 2022, ARCH closed a $2.5 billion fund in biotechnology investments.
Beth Seidenberg, Westlake BioPartners
Courtesy of Beth Siedenberg
Age: 65
Dwelling base: Los Angeles, California
Huge offers: Livingo, Flexus, Progeny
Seidenberg has seen healthcare from each angle— a doctor, then govt, and now investor with over 40 investments in well being tech. Seidenberg seems for firms that may “see across the nook”. She was an early investor in Livongo Well being, which was acquired by Teledoc in an $18.5 billion deal. She was additionally an early investor in ARMO Biosciences, Flexus Biosciences, and True North Therapeutics. She helped incubate Progyny, one of many first fertility expertise firms to ever go public. She believes a workforce’s grit is simply as essential as a standout thought: “Crucial factor that makes or breaks these firms finally ends up being the folks, you possibly can have an incredible thought and the improper workforce, and also you gained’t have an incredible final result,” she says.
Peter Singlehurst, Baillie Gifford
Courtesy of Peter Singlehurst
Age: 36
Dwelling base: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Huge offers: Honor, Tempus, Denali Therapeutics
Singlehurst stands out on this listing as a generalist investor, however he views that as a power, not a weak point in terms of healthcare investing. “There appears to be a common consensus that specialist traders do well being care, and non-specialist traders can’t do every part else. We don’t consider that’s true,” he defined. As the top of personal investments at Baillie Gifford, Singlehurst’s workforce has led the agency’s investments in startups Tempus and Honor—a few of the largest well being tech offers so far. Singlehurst joined Baillie Gifford’s graduate coaching program after ending a grasp’s diploma in 20th century philosophy in 2010. On the time, the agency was solely investing in public firms. Singlehurst helped spearhead the corporate’s efforts to begin investing in firms at their earliest phases, a division of Baillie Gifford that has since invested about $10 billion throughout over 100 companies globally.
Krishna Yeshwant, Google Ventures
Courtesy of GV
Age: 44
Dwelling base: Boston, Massachussets
Huge offers: Oscar, One Medical, Beam Therapeutics
Earlier than he was a healthcare investor and a health care provider, Yeshwant was a pc scientist. His curiosity in well being tech was piqued after he helped a bunch of surgeons construct medical software program in 2002. Like many traders who helped construct the well being tech investing discipline, Yeshwant noticed a chance to merge tech entrepreneurship with medical remedies. He helped discovered GV’s incubation program, which has constructed firms similar to Verve Therapeutics and Flatiron Well being. “Science is breaking open to learn sufferers and we’re nonetheless on the early innings of latest advances in gene enhancing and base enhancing,” Yeshwant says. At GV, the place he co-leads its life sciences group, Yeshwant’s portfolio contains greater than fifty investments similar to Beam Therapeutics, Oscar well being and One Medical.
Bijan Salehizadeh, NaviMed Capital
Courtesy of Bijan Salehizadeh
Age: 49
Dwelling base: Washington D.C.
Huge offers: Auris, Velocity Scientific Analysis
Salehizadeh was the primary seed investor in surgical robotics firm Auris, which was bought to Johnson and Johnson in 2019 for $5.7 billion. A longtime companion at Highland Capital, he struck off on his personal a number of years in the past to discovered NaviMed Capital, which focuses on progress buyouts within the well being tech house. Skilled as a health care provider earlier than he pursued a profession on the enterprise facet of healthcare, Salehizadeh has mentioned that he’s skeptical of tech entrepreneurs with no healthcare expertise who assume they’ll “disrupt” the extremely regulated trade. With NaviMed, he helped construct Velocity Scientific Analysis, a agency that consolidates scientific trial websites, which was purchased by GHO Capital final 12 months.
Sofia Guerra, Bessemer Enterprise Companions
Courtesy of Sofia Guerra
Age: 31
Dwelling base: Boston, Massachusetts
Huge offers: Oshi Well being, Home Rx, Turquoise Well being
Guerra instructed me that her investments are nonetheless of their early phases, however that doesn’t imply she doesn’t know the right way to spot a winner. Her investments with Bessemer Enterprise Companions embody the agency’s main funding in Home Rx’s Sequence A fundraising spherical. Earlier than becoming a member of Bessemer, Guerra was an investor at BoxGroup Ventures. She can also be the co-founder of Nucleate Bio, an entrepreneurship program that helps postdoctorate college students and PhDs convey scientific tasks to the industrial market. Guerra says {that a} founder’s drive and mission captures her consideration. “I’m notably excited to satisfy founders who’ve been outsiders or underdogs and have labored extremely laborious to show these odds round,” she explains. “We’re simply in inning three of well being tech so there may be a lot that we have to do to reverse the tendencies in rising healthcare prices and poor outcomes,” she added.
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