Two venture capital professionals have joined GE Healthymagination, a $250m corporate venturing fund that invests in medical technology start-ups as part of the US-listed industrial conglomerate General Electric’s $6bn initiative as it rolls out an accelerator for the sector, according to news provider VentureWire.
Alex de Winter, who previously spent three and a half years as partner of Mohr Davidow Ventures, and Risa Stack (pictured) from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’s (KPCB) life sciences group investing in precision medicine, therapeutics and platform technologies joined GE Healthymagination.
De Winter is a director and Stack is general manager of GE’s Emerging Health Innovations, reporting to Sue Siegel, chief executive of Healthymagination. Rowan Chapman, who had been a partner at venture capital firm Mohr Davidow since 2001, followed Siegel to GE in October 2012, becoming head of precision diagnostics, according to news provider Xconomy.
Stack has served for two years on the advisory board for Healthymagination – GE’s $6bn global commitment to provide better healthcare for more people by making healthcare more affordable and accessible
Prior to joining KPCB nine years ago, Stack was a principal at JP Morgan Partners in the life science practice for six years.
The GE Healthymagination fund was launched in 2009 to identify and partner with healthcare technology companies as part of a $6bn program by GE to boost healthy living.
The fund is effectively an internal joint venture between the company’s financial services division, GE Capital, and GE Healthcare, a $17bn-turnover business based in the UK. The fund invests in about 10 companies a year.
It has also created a partnership with
StartUp Health, an academy for health entrepreneurs. The partnership with GE will see 10 consumer health start-ups join a three-year accelerator in return for giving up 2% to 10% of their equity.
Siegel said: “Entrepreneurs seek an environment where their great ideas can incubate and flourish. We are happy to join StartUp Health to cultivate an atmosphere that accelerates growth and serve as a resource for young consumer health companies working to improve quality, access and affordability of healthcare.”
Rafael Torres, Healthymagination fund leader, GE Ventures, added: “One of the biggest challenges for young companies is the ability to scale. Often access to a market or specific domain training can stand in the way of growth. Working with StartUp Health, our goal is to make connections, provide expertise, and enable collaborations to help these consumer health companies grow.”
StartUp Health said it would help 1,000 healthcare entrepreneurs build growth businesses over the next decade through StartUp Health Academy, StartUp Health Network and StartUp Health Innovation Fund. StartUp Health was founded by health tech entrepreneurs Steve Krein and Unity Stoakes, and is chaired by former TimeWarner CEO, Jerry Levin.
The organization’s investors include leading health, technology, and business minds: Esther Dyson, Roger Ehrenberg, Richard Forman, Jason Finger, Linda Holliday, Howard Krein, Jon Miller, Jeff Stewart, and Artists & Instigators. Its corporate partners include phone operator AT&T, California HealthCare Foundation, crowdsource investment platform SecondMarket, law firm Morgan Lewis, media group O’Reilly, and online retailer Amazon.