CitareTx Investment Partners
CitareTx founded in 2008 is a venture development and investment firm based in Houston Texas. The firm provides investment and incubation services to start-up and early-stage medical device companies. The firm provides seed capital (equity) ranging from $5K to $2M with follow-on capital of up to $5M. The firm also considers investment opportunities with smaller than typically accepted venture capital market size thresholds. The firm is geographically agnostic but prefers companies to be based in Texas. The firm is actively seeking new opportunities.
Jeffery Sheldon
General Partner & Managing DirectorColorado Institute for Drug Device and Diagnostic Development
The Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic Development (CID4) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit entity committed to economic development through the creation and funding of Colorado Life Science companies. Our goal is to efficiently transform emerging life science innovations into commercial successes. First, we use a rigorous review process and advisory panel to select promising post-proof-of-concept technologies from Colorado’s outstanding research institutions and start-up companies. Second, we fund and actively manage product development while taking an equity position in existing companies and in new companies that we found with the inventors. Third, we facilitate additional seed and/or grant funding to further develop our portfolio companies technologies. By augmenting the value of these innovations, we position our portfolio companies to attract series A financing from venture capitalists and/or partnering opportunities with established pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. We have funded 9 early stage companies since June 2010 and these companies have raised more than $30 million in additional private capital and grant funding.
Richard Duke
Founder & CSOCorrelation Ventures
Correlation Ventures is a venture capital firm that founded in 2010 and is based in San Diego, California with an additional office in Palo Alto, California. The firm currently has approximately $165 million in total assets under management. The firm typically makes investments ranging from $0.25 million to $5 million over the life of the company, and the first investment will be not larger than $2.5 million. The firm’s preferred capital structure is convertible preferred equity or convertible loan. Correlation Ventures will consider invest in any industry segment at any stage, but there must be at least one other venture capital firm making their first investment in the company in this round. The firm only invests in US-based companies.
Correlation is extremely opportunistic when it comes to investments in the life sciences space; with that being said the firm's specified sectors and sub sectors of interest may or may not be an area in which Correlation Ventures is currently looking to allocate capital to. The firm has made a number of investments in companies in the life sciences space, and has mainly invested in companies in the biotech therapeutics and diagnostics space. The firm's current portfolio includes biotech therapeutics and diagnostics firms developing products targeting endocrine, metabolic, and nutritional diseases, musculoskeletal system and connective tissue, neoplasms, cancer, and oncology, genitourinary system, and infectious and parasitic diseases.
David Coats
Managing Director
Deton Corp.
Deton is developing a novel non-invasive simple-to-use sample collection device for tuberculosis (TB) patients who are unable to provide a sample.
Proper diagnosis is essential to effectively treat the more than 9million new cases of TB every year. Typically, a sputum sample is collected to run the diagnostic test. However, in 22% of adults and in all children patients, sputum is impossible to collect. These patients have to rely on inadequate alternative collection methods that are invasive, high-cost, and resource-intensive. With our device, patients can now provide a sample even in low-resource setting and find out their TB status. Deton will enable 26M samples to be tested every year.
After promising clinical data, Deton is now raising $1.6M to build an ISO 13485 disposable product and to obtain pivotal clinical validation. Discussions with multiple potential diagnostic partners and first feedback from experts at World Health Organization show significant interest in adopting the device once effective validation has been completed.
Diamond BioFund
Diamond BioFund is an evergreen fund that was established in 2013 and is based in Taipei City, Taiwan. The fund is operating from a committed capital of USD 300 million. The fund makes equity investments in early- to late-stage private businesses. Typical allocations range from USD 1.5 million to north of USD 10 million. The fund likes to lead investments in Taiwan-based businesses and co-invest in businesses overseas. The fund is currently seeking new opportunities in Taiwan, Greater China, Southeast Asia, US, Canada, and EU.
Diamond BioFund takes a generalist approach when considering life science opportunities, including therapeutics (small molecule and biologics), medical devices, diagnostics, healthcare services, and nutraceuticals. The fund is seeking cutting edge, innovative, and platform technology. In therapeutics, the fund considers all stages from preclinical through pre-IPO. In medical devices, the fund prefers later stage projects with proof of concept. The fund is open to all disease indications.
Winston Town
Vice PresidentEaston Capital
Easton Capital Investment Group is a venture capital firm based in New York. Easton Capital invests broadly in the life science sector, and considers investment opportunities globally. The firm is likely to make 4-6 allocations in the next 6 months. Allocations typically vary from $250,000 to $5 million, in the form of equity or convertible debt. Allocations are typically made at the venture stage of development, but may be made in seed rounds if a company already has proof of their product's efficacy.
Lisa Rhoads
Managing Director
EmbraceHer Innovations, Inc.
EmbraceHer is the women's reproductive health club developed by clinicians. We support the lifetime reproductive health of every woman from menstruation, fertility preservation, conception, infertility/IVF, maternity, postpartum, lactation, sexual health and menopause. Our digital platform provides targeted, clinically-sound health education, subscription-based telehealth services, and doctor-curated medical and health products for women.
Our maternity product is the only mobile digital health offering developed and prescribed by Board-certified obstetricians, used by over half a million pregnant mothers.
Denise Terry
Cofounder & CEOExcel Venture Management
Excel Venture Management is a venture capital firm that was founded in 2008 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm has managed one fund with committed capital of $125 million, and the firm is currently raising the second fund. Excel Venture Management seeks to make equity investments into life science companies from early to late stages. The typical investment size ranges from $3 million to $ 5million. The firm plans to invest in 4-5 companies over the next 6-9 months and prefers to invest in companies based in US.
Eric Zimmerman
Kevin Liang
Flagship Ventures
David Berry
Partner
Fusion Genomics Corporation
Fusion Genomics Corp (FG) is a molecular diagnostic test development company that is introducing diagnostic kits with companion analysis software that offer superior clinical information, faster turn-around-times and ease of use for hospitals and clinical laboratories. Fusion is the first of two companies in the world to bring a validated Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) diagnostic test complete with highly secure cloud based analytical service for childhood cancers (ChildSeq-RNA SRCT) into the clinic. This test was validated in the renowned medical testing facility at the Texas Children Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine.
FG is completing development of kits for facilitating absolute diagnosis of pediatric and adult blood cancers. In addition, FG has partnered with the Royal Tropical Institute (Dutch: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen; KIT) a World Health Organization reference diagnostic laboratory for infectious diseases to design the next generation of assays for the detection of infectious diseases including drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis, influenza, hepatitis and hemorrhagic fevers including Ebola.