Boston-based investment firm LRVHealth has launched an early-stage platform for digital health, medical devices and diagnostics, fueled by $100 million in venture capital.
Partnering on the fund are more than 20 healthcare industry insiders and thought leaders, eight national healthcare systems and the Innovation Institute, a for-profit LLC owned by six non-profit health systems, operating in 20 states. (The Innovation Institute owners include Avera, Bon Secours Health System, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, Mercy Health and Providence St. Joseph Health. An LRV Health spokesman said the only other healthcare system investor they can currently name is Michigan-based McLaren Health Care.)
LRVHealth, formerly known as Long River Ventures, said the platform is designed for identifying, creating and investing in “disruptive,” early-stage companies across healthcare IT, healthcare technology-enabled services, devices and diagnostics.
Founded in 2000, LRVHealth said the nonprofit healthcare systems at the core of its partner ecosystem represent148 hospitals and 1,882 non-acute care settings with more than 25,000 clinicians covering over 43 million Americans across 23 states.
Additional healthcare systems, payers and vendors will be added as strategic limited partners over the course of 2018, the firm said.
“LRVHealth has emerged as the premier early-stage healthcare venture capital firm. When the Innovation Institute began looking for a partner to launch a fund with, we evaluated several potential suitors and concluded that LRVHealth was the best fit,” said Joe Randolph, president and CEO of the Innovation Institute, in a prepared statement. “Our intent was to be more than a passive limited partner investor, instead actively participating in the fund with a seasoned team. The Innovation Institute infrastructure will assist in vetting investment opportunities, piloting solutions and helping to grow early-stage companies.”
The LRVHealth investment team is led by Will Cowen, Tripp Peake and Keith Figlioli, who recently joined LRVHealth after serving as senior vice president of healthcare informatics at Premier Inc. for nearly a decade. LRV IV is the firm’s fourth fund and builds on a 17-year track record of providing the first institutional investments in market leading companies such as GetWellNetwork, MedVentive, Phreesia, lifeIMAGE and Convergent Dental.
Among the firm’s advisors are:
• R. Andrew Eckert, president and CEO of Acelity, board chair at Varian Medical and board member at Becton Dickinson (BD). Eckert is also past CEO at Valence Health, CRC Health, Trizetto and Eclipsys.
• Glenn Steele, M.D., Ph.D., chairman at xG Health Solutions and former CEO of Geisinger, and vice chairman of Health Transformation Alliance. Steele is also the former dean of the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine, and former vice president for medical affairs at the University of Chicago.
• Terry Linn, former senior vice president of corporate development and strategy at Premier Inc., chief development officer at AMI and partner at Ernst & Young.
• Micky Tripathi, president and CEO of Mass eHealth Collaborative, former president and CEO of Indiana Health Information Exchange and former manager at Boston Consulting Group.
