Jagannath Samavedam
Senior Principal 

Vital Venture Capital United States

Vital Venture Capital, founded in 2007, is a venture capital firm with offices in: Simsbury, CT; Bethesda, MD; Philadelphia, PA; Naples, FL; and Lincolnshire, IL. The firm focuses on B2B, SaaS software, medical devices, and diagnostics. The firm seeks opportunities that provide some degree of investment loss protection through strong intellectual property. The firm’s target investment size is $1-3M for each portfolio company spread over 1-3 rounds. The firm invests in companies that are based in the US. The firm is actively seeking new investment opportunities.

Craig Asher
Principal 

Volcano Capital United States

Volcano Capital is a family office/venture capital firm based in New York. The firm manages an evergreen fund that operates free from the constraints of traditional venture capital funds. The firm seeks to make seed, venture, and growth equity investments in early to mid-stage medical device companies, but will also consider secured debt to help revenue generating companies with short term cash flow issues. The firm will also consider pre-seed investments. The firm can allocate anywhere from $1M to $10M per company, but generally allocates around $8M. The firm typically does 3 rounds of financing with an initial investment of around $3M. The firm is geographically agnostic, but highly prefers to invest in companies that are based in the US. The firm seeks to make about 3-4 allocations in the next 6-9 months.

Volcano Capital is currently looking for medical device companies with a strong emphasis on products with a 510(k) regulatory pathway. In terms of subsectors, the firm is looking for products specifically in the areas of interventional radiology and cardiology, spine/orthopedics and minimally invasive surgery. The firm is generally opportunistic in terms of indication.

Brian Grulke
Associate 

Walter Greenblatt & Associates United States

Our clients are early-stage biotechnology, medical device, diagnostics and pharmaceutical service companies. When we begin working with a client they are frequently looking to complete proof-of-concept studies, secure intellectual property and other critical preliminary tasks. Typically we raise the first round ($1 - $5 million of capital) needed to accomplish these milestones, usually, but not always from angel investors. After key milestones have been achieved using that money, we generally follow by raising a second round of $5-20 million, usually institutional money, for development and growth

By working this way, we increase our clients' success rate raising capital and building their companies and the returns to the investors we bring into those companies. We have raised over $80 million in early stage funding for our clients (in Seed, Series A and Series B rounds) and delivered realized returns, so far, over $500 million—a realized return to date of over 6X—to the investors who provided that early stage capital, with a number of the companies still driving towards an exit that may increase that figure. Realized (cash-on-cash) internal rates of return for a hypothetical investor who participated in each round of financing offered by WG&A to date exceeds 65% annually.

Walter Greenblatt
Managing Director 

Wellington Partners Germany

Wellington Partners is a venture capital firm based in Munich, Germany, with an additional office in Zurich, Switzerland. The firm specializes in early-stage and growth capital investments in the Technology and Life Sciences sector. The firm has approximately €800M AUM and is currently investing out of a €100M fund for Life Science companies. Depending on the stage of the company, the firm can allocate up to €10M over the life of the investment. The firm can also lead or co-lead financing rounds of up to €30M or higher with syndicates. The firm focuses on European companies but will consider US-based companies with activities in Europe. The firm is actively seeking new investment opportunities.

Year Founded
1990
Biotech Phase of Development
Medtech Phase of Development
Capital Structure Preference
Investment Stage Preference
Rainer Strohmenger
General Partner 

ZeroTo510 Medical Device Accelerator United States

The majority of medical devices get cleared for commercial deployment through the FDA’s 510(k) clearance process, which is the fastest and most economical route to market for a new medical device. ZeroTo510 has developed a unique program that enables entrepreneurs with ideas for innovative medical devices to take advantage of the fast path to market. ZeroTo510 is a first-of-its-kind cohort-based medical device accelerator. Hosted in Memphis, Tennessee, the program leverages key regional strengths in biomedical research and medical device manufacturing to create a unique program.

Allan Daisley
Allan Daisley
LinkedIn logo President 
BIO

Allan Daisley is the director of entrepreneurship and sustainability at Memphis Bioworks Foundation. In this role, he manages entrepreneurship and business incubation programs and helps to grow and support the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Memphis area. He is the program director of the ZeroTo510 Medical Device Accelerator, an innovative, first-of-its-kind entrepreneurship program that helps entrepreneurs launch new medical device companies, navigate the startup process and deliver their products to market. ZeroTo510 uses a methodology that combines an intensive mentorship-driven, cohort-based program with a seed investment in each company.

 

Allan previously worked as an economic development consultant and managed a business incubator program focused on leveraging entrepreneurship and technology as key drivers of sustainable economic development. He also has spent time in senior strategy and marketing roles at IBM, as a consultant at Accenture, and as an entrepreneur in two start-up ventures. Allan has an MBA from Duke University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.