Hot Mandates: Silicon Valley-based Family Office

15 Mar

A private/family investment vehicle based in Silicon Valley, CA. The firm makes seed investments via an accelerator arm, and also has a stage-agnostic fund. Seed investments are typically $25,000-100,000, and the firm is capable of making larger investments via the fund. The firm also provides a three-month accelerator program, and works with partners in the healthcare industry to strategically invest in startups. The firm will consider investing in companies worldwide.

The firm is interested in investing in digital health and medical technology and invests in subsectors in which the firm and its industry partners can apply expertise; within medical devices, typically this means products that have a significant software component, including biosensors, wearables and health monitoring devices. Within digital health, the firm’s interests include the following areas: Care Management, Hospital Workflow, Diagnostics, A.I. & Big Data, Population Health, Patient Adherence, Telemedicine. The firm is interested in both consumer applications and enterprise software. The firm works with strategic partners (including major pharma companies and health systems) to identify focus areas for innovation.

The firm prefers to invest in companies with at least two co-founders, one with technical expertise and one with business expertise; for the accelerator program in particular, the firm prefers to work with companies that have a technical expert co-founder. In addition to due diligence on the management team and technology, the firm also considers a product’s potential market opportunity.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email LHI@lifesciencenation.com.

Hot Mandates: California-based Foundation

15 Mar

A Mountain View, CA-based foundation provides grants for research into rejuvenation biotechnologies that prevent or reverse age-related tissue damage. Historically grants have ranged from $40,000 to $200,000 although this range may change in the future. Grants are available to researchers worldwide. The foundation normally requests that grants not be used to cover overhead/facilities costs. At present, 15 projects are being supported.

The foundation is focused on projects that counter aging by applying one of seven areas of biotechnology; stem cells (induced pluripotent stem cells), gene therapy (specifically WILT; whole-body interdiction of lengthening telomeres), allotopic expression of proteins generated by mitochondrial genes, immunotherapies that target anergic killer T-cells or adipose tissue microphages, tissue engineering to repair collagen crosslinks and damage to elastin structures, antibodies/vaccines that target amyloid, and enzymes that target lysosomal waste. Only biotechnology projects are considered; the foundation does not give grants to medtech or bioinformatic projects in these fields.

As most of these fields of rejuvenation biotechnology are at early stages of understanding, the foundation primarily funds preclinical projects where the impact of their funding will be highest. However, the foundation does not rule out the possibility of supporting a clinical trial for a project

within the field of rejuvenation biotechnology provided that project is not a cell therapy or tissue engineering project.

Historically the foundation grants have mostly been provided to academic/non-profit researchers but the foundation is also open to working with commercial companies. When making funding decisions the foundation puts significant weight on the investigators’ publication records. The foundation does not normally seek any management/advisory involvement in a project. The foundation encourages sponsored investigators to collaborate with each other where synergy exists between projects.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email LHI@lifesciencenation.com.

Hot Mandates: Chicago-Based Venture Capital Investor

15 Mar

A venture capital firm based in Chicago, IL focused on early-stage health technology investments with a consumer-focus. The firm is looking for companies with solutions that drive consumer engagement and health accountability. (these do not have to sell D2C, most of their companies do not) The firm manages over $100M in capital with initial investments of $1,000,000 to $5,000,000. The firm is primarily thesis-focused and invests from Seed stage to Series B, with a focus just at or before the A round.

The firm is seeking digital health companies focused on the empowering consumers to be better stewards of their health and their healthcare expenditures. Accordingly, the firm is not interested in technology that solve problems solely within payers and providers, such as billing, care coordination for hospitals, or EHR platforms. The firm is indication agnostic, though has interest in chronic illnesses, social determinants, behavioral health, and personalized care among others.

The firm does not have set management team requirements. The firm will play a very active role post-investment, traditionally by taking board seats, providing key sales introductions, assisting with scaling, hiring, and providing network support.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email LHI@lifesciencenation.com.

Introducing Healthtech Partnering Week Innovator’s Pitch Challenge Finalists

11 Mar

By Claire Jeong, Chief Conference Officer, Vice President of Investor Research, Asia BD, LSN

claireLife Science Nation (LSN) is pleased to announce next week’s Healthtech Partnering Week (HPW) Innovator’s Pitch Challenge finalists. The Innovator’s Pitch Challenge is an opportunity for early-stage companies to gain additional exposure to conference attendees, pitch directly to a panel of relevant investors, and participate in a live Q&A session.

Pitching opportunities at LSN partnering events are popular events for startups and investors alike. They provide exposure and experience to the companies, while providing investors with insight into the latest technology organized by sector and interest. Check out our finalists and select a logo to learn more about their participation. Registration is still open, so don’t miss out and sign up today!

Innovator’s Pitch Challenge Finalists

 

Announcing McDermott Will & Emery HPW Workshops

11 Mar

By Gregory Mannix, Vice President International Business Development, LSN

Life Science Nation (LSN) is thrilled to welcome McDermott Will & Emery as Title Sponsor of Healthtech Partnering Week (HPW) with two live workshops accessible to registered attendees of Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) and 4D Meets AI.

McDermott Will & Emery has brought valuable insights to LSN’s community of early-stage fundraising companies, investors, service providers, and strategic partnerships for years, and we look forward to bringing their content to the digital stage next week. There’s still time to register for HPW – Sign up for access to McDermott Will & Emery workshops and more!

Negotiating Term Sheets: What’s Best for the Company and What’s Best for You?
Live Workshop! March 16 | 1 PM EDT (Register for RESI Access)

Instructors:

  • Nancy Briefs, President & CEO, AltrixBio, Inc.
  • David Hendren, Managing Director, Augmentum Ventures
  • Mark Mihanovic, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery
  • Aroma Sharma, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery

This interactive workshop, organized and led by McDermott Will & Emery, will provide wisdom to early-stage CEOs and management on the latest trends in term sheets, with a focus on founder and management equity opportunities. The workshop will cover common issues of concern to entrepreneurs (valuation/dilution, liquidation preference, board makeup, protective provisions, anti-dilution). Experts from the legal, investment and entrepreneurial community will discuss the interplay of financing milestones in the term sheet discussion. Learn more!

How to Go to Market: Commercializing AI-Based Health Technologies
Live Workshop! March 19 | 10 AM EDT (Register for 4D Meets AI Access)

Instructors:

  • Richie Bavasso, MBA, Co-Founder & CEO, nQ Medical Inc.
  • Carolyn Metnick, JD, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery
  • Michael Ryan, JD, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery
  • Dale Van Demark, JD, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery

This workshop, hosted by our Title Sponsor McDermott Will & Emery, will focus on the various options for and the legal considerations involved with commercializing AI-based healthcare technologies, including regulatory and data strategies. Learn about the range of options, from R&D use to consumer products, from leading members of McDermott’s digital health practice and companies that have blazed the trail. Learn more!

NVIDIA Spotlights Drug Discovery AI Startups at 4D Meets AI

11 Mar

By Rory McCann, Marketing Manager & Conference Producer, LSN

NVIDIA Global Healthcare AI Startups Lead, Renee Yao is shining a spotlight on exceptional AI startups using their technology to advance drug discovery. This startup showcase will feature leaders from three AI companies – Entos, Insilico Medicine, and nference – at next week’s 4D Meets AI digital partnering conference.

The startups showcase complements the mission of 4D Meets AI in its goal of highlighting exceptional AI technology and its applications in advancing healthcare. 4D Meets AI promotes and facilitates conversations that lead to deals funding the future of AI technology improving medical care and overall health for future generations.

There’s still time to sign up for 4D Meets AI, March 18-19. If you’re fundraising for your AI technology, you don’t want to miss this partnering experience! Check out NVIDIA’s startup showcase and sign up to start meeting with early-stage companies, investors, service providers, and strategic partners advancing AI technology for health and wellness.

NVIDIA Inception Drug Discovery AI Startup Showcase
Moderator: Renee Yao, Global Healthcare AI Startups Lead, NVIDIA
Pharma companies’ overall venture investments have grown steadily over the last 5 years — but AI has emerged as a standout area of investment, with pharma incumbent-backed healthcare AI funding growing more than 10x since 2018. In this talk, you will hear about NVIDIA inception program benefits for healthcare AI startups and hear about a few cutting-edge drug discovery AI startups’ latest breakthroughs.

Accelerating Molecular Discovery through GPU-Enabled Physics-Based Machine Learning
Tom Miller, PhD, CEO, Entos, Inc.

GPU-Enabled Generative Biology and Generative Chemistry for End-to-End Drug Discovery
Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, Founder & CEO, Insilico Medicine

nference: Making Biomedical Knowledge Computable
Tyler Wagner, PhD, Senior Director, Biomedical Research, nference

Speaker Bios

Renee Yao, Global Healthcare AI Startups Lead, NVIDIA (Moderator)
Renee Yao leads global healthcare AI startups at NVIDIA, managing 1000+ healthcare startups in digital health, medical instrument, medical imaging, genomics, and drug discovery segments. Previously she worked as a senior product manager and product marketing manager for AI Systems at NVIDIA.

Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, Founder & CEO, Insilico Medicine
Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine (insilico.com), a leader in next-generation artificial intelligence technologies for drug discovery, biomarker development. He is also the founder and CEO of Deep Longevity, Inc, a global company developing a broad range of artificial intelligence-based biomarkers of aging and longevity. Since 2015 he invented critical technologies in the field of generative adversarial networks (GANs) and reinforcement learning (RL) for generation of the novel molecular structures with the desired properties and generation of synthetic biological and patient data. He also pioneered the applications of deep learning technologies for prediction of human biological age using multiple data types, transfer learning from aging into disease, target identification, and signaling pathway modeling. Under his leadership Insilico raised over $50 million in multiple rounds from expert investors, opened R&D centers in 6 countries and regions, and partnered with multiple pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and academic institutions. Prior to founding Insilico, he worked in senior roles at ATI Technologies (acquired by AMD in 2006), NeuroG Neuroinformatics, Biogerontology Research Foundation. Since 2012 he published over 130 peer-reviewed research papers, and 2 books including “The Ageless Generation: How Biomedical Advances Will Transform the Global Economy” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). He serves on the editorial boards of Aging Research Reviews, Aging, Trends in Molecular Medicine, Frontiers in Genetics, and co-chairs the Annual Aging Research, Drug Discovery and AI Forum (7th annual in 2020) at Basel Life, one of Europe’s largest industry events in drug discovery. He is the adjunct professor of artificial intelligence at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

Tom Miller, PhD, CEO, Entos, Inc.

Tom Miller is a scientist and entrepreneur with a focus on AI-driven methods for molecular simulation and discovery. Following a PhD at Oxford and a postdoc at UC Berkeley, he joined the Caltech faculty in 2008 and was promoted to full professor in 2013. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles and received awards for research excellence from the Sloan Foundation, Dreyfus Foundation, and American Chemical Society. He has mentored dozens of students and postdocs that are now leaders in academics and industry. In 2020, Tom co-founded Entos, Inc. to accelerate molecular and materials discovery via physics-based machine learning. In the past year, Entos has recruited over 25 world-class AI researchers, software engineers, and drug discovery scientists and continues to grow.

Tyler Wagner, PhD, Senior Director, Biomedical Research, nference
Dr. Tyler Wagner is the Senior Director of Biomedical Research at nference and has been with the company for over 3 years. Prior to joining nference, Dr. Wagner obtained his PhD in the Weiss lab (MIT) and Densmore lab (BU) where he engineered both an RNA virus and mRNA into multi-functional platforms for regulated gene delivery. He continued with a postdoc in the Weiss lab where he explored in vivo regulatory strategies for RNA therapeutics. At nference, he is currently leading clinical research projects with multiple pharma companies and the Mayo Clinic, ranging from early detection of disease to real-world outcomes assessment, and is working to apply machine learning to outstanding questions in multiple therapeutic areas, including cardiology, oncology, and neuroscience.

Hot Investor Mandate: Healthcare Focused Fund Invests Up to $8M in USA-Based Technologies Across All Life Science Sectors, Including Healthtech

11 Mar

A specialized healthcare and life sciences investment firm with over a half-billion dollars in capital under management and expects to close their next fund in 2021. The firm invests in early-stage companies (Seed/Series A) developing innovative new medical technologies, biotechnologies, and digitally-enabled healthcare services. The firm generally invests $4-8 million of equity capital per round and up to $10-20 million over the investment life. The firm is actively investing and will make 3-5 investments in 2021. The firm focuses on USA-based opportunities.

The firm is currently looking for companies developing Medical Devices, Therapeutics, Diagnostics, and Healthcare IT products. For medical devices and therapeutics, the firm is open to the full spectrum of subsector and indication and will consider companies developing orphan indications. In HealthTech, the firm is interested in AI-enabled clinical/diagnostic/workflow platforms but will also consider other companies that fall into the broader Healthcare IT space as well, including mobile health companies developing consumer-facing apps. They will consider companies with proprietary platform technologies as well as single/multiple asset companies.

As an early-stage investor, the firm invests almost exclusively in pre-revenue companies, with significant ownership opportunities. They look for experienced management teams, help build the team, and require a seat on the company’s board.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.