Hot Investor Mandate 1: Europe-Based VC Invests in Groundbreaking Therapeutic, Medical Devices, Diagnostic and Digital Health Startups

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A life sciences and healthcare venture capital firm founded in 2014 is looking for global investment opportunities. The firm’s LPs include a pharma company and a government-owned fund of funds. The firm is currently allocating out of its $35M fund and actively seeking investment opportunities. The firm will typically participate in Seed to Series B rounds with initial sizes of investment ranging from $0.5M to $2.5M, and will earmark $1-3M for follow-on investments. The firm invests globally.

The firm is looking for companies with groundbreaking science and technology, and invests broadly across therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, and healthcare IT. The firm’s strongest expertise lies in therapeutics and they have invested the most in this sector. The firm will consider any asset from pre-clinical to phase II. The firm is open to all indications but is more selective when reviewing companies in overcrowded indications such as oncology.

The firm seeks innovative, high growth potential companies led by strong management teams, particularly with strong scientific expertise. The firm prefers to lead or co-lead investment rounds, especially if they are participating in Seed to Series A. They are also open to co-investing alongside other investors.

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

Hot Investor Mandate 2: Medtech Investment Group Looks Globally for Devices and Diagnostics in Cardiology, Neuromodulation, IVD and Imaging

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An investment group founded by several Chinese medical device experts seeks to allocate 5-20 Million RMB (0.7-3 Million USD) in various early stage life science opportunities. The firm seeks to make several investments in the upcoming year and focusing on opportunities raising angel, pre-A, Series A, and B rounds. The group seeks to make use of their founders’ expertise and successes in the medical device industry to help guide their investments towards growth and success.

The group is primarily interested in medical devices and in vitro diagnostic (IVD) technologies and/or companies. More specifically, they’re interested in opportunities in areas related to cardiology, neuromodulation, in vitro diagnostics, and imaging as that is where they have the most expertise. However, they are willing to look at other areas as well so long as the opportunity is interesting and has the potential to be developed. .

The group heavily prefers that the company has a China angle to work with. They believe that they can contribute more to companies who wish to work in China through connections they have already made such as through helping acquire non-dilutive funds from the government of China and utilizing various connections in industrial parks across China. The firm also wishes to work with companies that are willing to work with the partners at Guoqian so that they can utilize their prior experiences to help the companies grow.

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

Hot Investor Mandate 3: New Fund Invests in Medical Devices and Digital Health With a Focus on Surgical Opportunities

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A new VC firm founded in 2017 and based in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA is actively looking for post-seed investment opportunities in which the firm’s partners can contribute significant value. The size of investment will vary on a case-by-case basis. Currently, the firm will only consider companies that are based in the USA.

The firm is most interested in medical devices and healthcare IT/digital health/AI in healthcare start-up companies with a unique, high-growth potential product or technology. The firm is highly interested in surgical devices that can dramatically improve outcomes in healthcare systems. Ideally, these companies should have broad IP protection and have existing first paying customers. The firm will not consider opportunities in the therapeutics sector.

The firm will evaluate investment opportunities based on a proprietary scoring model, which includes the company’s market size/niche, growth potential, management team, exit potential, etc. The firm will expect to see management teams with strong expertise in their company’s relevant sectors, as well as a strong business model. The firm will always take a board seat and one of the firm’s general partners will act as an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR), taking an active role by serving as an advisor and providing project-specific expertise. The firm can act as the lead investor or co-invest with other funds.

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

Hot Investor Mandate 4: Venture Fund Focuses on Therapeutics with a Precision Medicine Approach

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A Boston-based venture capital firm that raised a fund in 2017 makes early stage equity investments of about $10-15 million, and can either lead investments or co-invest. The firm will consider investment opportunities worldwide.

The firm invests primarily in therapeutic opportunities. The firm is open to investing in any indication area; areas of high interest include precision medicine approaches, autoimmune diseases, oncology, neurology (particularly diseases with genetically defined populations), dermatology and ophthalmology. Generally, the firm is less interested in broad patient populations such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, or cardiovascular disease. The firm generally invests from late preclinical (1-2 years pre-IND) through to Phase II, and prefers to invest in assets with good animal model and/or genetic evidence to support efficacy a3

nd target validation.

The firm only invests in privately held companies. The firm prefers to work with management teams that have had prior startup successes. The firm is an active investor and the partners have deep experience in company building, and is therefore interested in providing support on strategy, BD, recruiting and other areas of active management in addition to providing capital.

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

McDermott Will & Emery Joins RESI NYC As a Title Sponsor

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By Natasha Eldridge, Director of RESI Conference Series, LSN

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Life Science Nation (LSN) is proud to announce that McDermott Will & Emery will serve as a title sponsor for the inaugural RESI NYC on November 15, 2017.  McDermott joins RESI NYC title sponsors WuXi AppTec, a leading global pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device open-access capability and technology platform, and Johnson and Johnson Innovation (JLABS), which provides state of the art laboratories, core research facilities, resources and connections to early stage life science innovators.

“We are proud to have been a sponsor of RESI since its inception and are particularly excited to join Wuxi AppTec and JLABS as title sponsors of the inaugural RESI in New York, a burgeoning region for life sciences,” said Byron Kalogerou, founder and chair of the firm’s Life Sciences Industry Group.  “We are continually impressed at the global convening power of RESI in its ability to connect early stage CEOs with the full spectrum of funding sources from VCs, corporate VCs, family offices and sovereign funds to venture philanthropies.  We are excited that many of our early stage clients in our Life Sciences Entrepreneurs Acceleration Program (“LEAP”) will have an opportunity to participate as well.”

“We look forward to sharing our legal insights with RESI attendees in New York in November, and at the September conference in Boston, where we will convene a panel on negotiating term sheets to be led by McDermott Will & Emery attorneys Brian Bunn and Jonathan Ursprung,” said Kalogerou.  “Our new partner, Linda Ji, will moderate the RESI panel on Chinese Investment.”

McDermott Will & Emery offers deep experience in health care and life sciences, and provides a continuum of legal services that will meet the needs of life sciences companies at every stage of development.  The firm’s Life Sciences Industry Group is comprised of 135 professionals, 60 with advanced degrees and many others with government and industry experience across 19 offices around the world.  Learn more here.

 

New at RESI Boston and RESI NYC: Academic and Tech Transfer Registration

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By Lauren Schulkamp, Business Development Manager-RESI Conference Series, LSN

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We are excited to welcome academic scientists and tech transfer professionals to RESI for the first time.  The Redefining Early Stage Investments Conference (RESI) is now offering a special academic rate to universities, institutes, tech transfer offices, and hospitals to shine the spotlight on some of the most innovative emerging technology.  If you’d like to come to RESI to network with over 300 early stage life science investors, you can get an academic registration online now.  Academic registration includes the following:

  • All day access pass to 24 panels & workshops, RESI’s ad hoc meeting area, Exhibit Hall and Innovation Challenge, meals, and the evening Cocktail Reception
  • Full day of networking with early stage investors and pharma external innovation staff
  • Learn from life science investors and understand their investment strategies
  • Listen to current fundraising life science CEOs describe their process in developing a fundraising strategy
  • Get to know the experts as they explain the valuation process, organizing an outbound marketing campaign, negotiating term sheets, and other post-academia commercialization topics

Click here for a complete list of RESI Boston Panels & Workshops

** RESI Partnering is not included in the academic and tech transfer registration

To qualify you must:

  • Be affiliated with a non-profit certified 501(c)(3) organization. This includes universities, institutes, tech transfer offices, and hospitals
  • Register with an email address corresponding with the organization you are representing
  • Provide proof of current position – this can be done by sending proof via email to resi@lifesciencenation.com

Payers and Providers as Value Adding Health Tech Investors

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By Michael Quigley, VP of Investor Research, LSN

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Healthcare payers and healthcare providers alike stand to gain significant increases in cost efficiency as a result of the successful implementation of new technologies into their workflows and into the lives of the patients they care for and insure. As such it is no surprise that many of these groups have begun investing into early stage technologies, either through their own corporate venture vehicles or by sponsoring external venture funds.

Beyond simply providing capital, these groups represent a tremendous value-adding resource for the companies that they invest in.  Based on our conversations and experience in reaching out to these groups on behalf of companies, they are almost exclusively investing with a strategic mandate, targeting technologies where they can be a customer or help drive adoption in a meaningful way. This leads to them primarily focusing on healthcare IT, tech-enabled services and, to a lesser extent, low-risk medical technologies.

An interesting parallel can be drawn between these payer and provider linked funds in the digital health space and large pharma groups for therapeutics. Both bring significant expertise to the table in their respective sector and invaluable development advice; lower the risk of customer acquisition (for healthcare IT companies) or M+A/exit risk for therapeutics if the technologies do work and they provide a significant level of validation in the technology for other investors looking to co-invest or participate in later rounds. To put it simply, if I was a digital health entrepreneur, these kinds of funds would be at the top of my list when fundraising.

At RESI Boston on Sept 26th, the Payer & Provider Venture Funds Panel will feature 4 speakers from these funds, who will discuss the types and stages of technologies they are looking for, how they add value outside of capital, and where they see their space going in the next few years. Attendees of the session will hear from:

If you’d like to hear the advice of these investors, you can register for RESI now.