Jacqueline LeSage believes that active portfolio development, including with the parent organisation, is critical when it comes to building success.
As managing general partner of Munich Re Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of reinsurance company Munich Re, she is focused on delivering value to the portfolio, saying it is one of her main goals for the coming year.
“My ideal is for our portfolio companies to continue to thrive so that they can be well positioned when the later-stage funding and exit markets open – hopefully this year,” says LeSage.
The past year has been a difficult one for global financials, but Munich Re has supported its portfolio through this challenging time and some of the portfolio has managed to garner large valuation increases. Amid a wider atmosphere of down rounds and valuation dips, this is no mean feat.
“My ideal is for our portfolio companies to continue to thrive so that they can be well positioned when the later-stage funding and exit markets open”
One of the most exciting investments for Munich Re Ventures in the past year was leading a seed round for New York-based Quantile Health, where the unit also took a board director role. “Quantile is creating new payment and risk-transfer solutions between payers (health insurers) and pharmaceutical companies to enable access to the new transformative, and potentially curative, cell gene therapies,” says LeSage.
The team has grown in the past 12 months, with four investment professionals joining in 2023, including its first analysts, and expanding again by three more so far in 2024.
“We are very excited about hiring a head of talent within our portfolio development team to help our portfolio companies with all things leadership, organisational and recruiting,” says LeSage.
LeSage holds a bachelor’s of science degree in economics and multinational management from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and an MBA from University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
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