DVC: Health invests in early stage companies that improve quality of life & reduce suffering, unlock human potential, and/or improve our broken healthcare delivery system. We are part of the Duro Ventures Collective (DVC) which has invested in over 200 early stage startups and deployed over $80 million in capital.
We started DVC: Health by asking high net worth healthcare professionals to join and invest with us. With doctors, nurses, administrators, scientists, and insurers as our LP-foundation, health-tech founders prefer to work with us over generic firms. This is how we continue to win allocations in sought after deals.
"DVC: Health is an easy choice for any health tech founder. Finding capital is one thing. Finding truly value-add LPs in healthcare is quite another. Their sole focus on health means that whatever your need as a health-tech founder, at least one of their LPs knows how to help. I would work with Dan Hightower and DVC: Health again in an instant, and recommend that any health-tech startups do the same." - Nived Narayanan, Founder of Prescribe (YCW21)
View DVC: Health’s strategy, track record, and fund structure here. In short, DVC: Health and team have invested over $2m into 25+ health-related startups since Jan 2021 -- with five markups and one in acquisition conversations already. AL Access Fund joined DVC: Health second deal, TalkDoc.
DVC: Health Team:
Dan Hightower: DVC Founding Partner
- Current Product Lead at AngelList Ventures
- Former founder/CEO @ Clariture Health (exited to Trilliant Health)
- Former Co-founder/COO @ Kinetic Eye (computer vision for human safety)
- Former health-tech VC at Martin Ventures
- Physician assistant, trained by US Army (Special Forces Médical Sergeant)
- See LinkedIn
Milan Thakor: DVC Partner, DVC: Health Syndicate lead
- Former Founder, Head of Product @ Jasper Health, a Redesign Health company (backed by General Catalyst)
- Founder of Unwind, a Y Combinator backed home wellness startup (Acquired in 2015)
- Director of Product at Cold Start Ventures
- Product lead at Lyft from 2015 - 2018
- See LinkedIn
More on the fund here; highlights:
- Funds get better access than syndicates. While syndicates are great, some of the hottest deals move too quickly, don’t have allocation for, or just don’t want to deal with syndicates. We expect less than half of investments to also be syndicated.
- Value-add LP base = unique access. Founders are seeking to diversify their cap tables with value-add LPs. Funds that can provide this are getting into deals that undifferentiated funds are not getting into. Sapien Capital is actively recruiting the healthcare industry’s best professionals, from providers to administrators to hospital executives to join the fund.
- Healthcare venture capital is hot. Healthcare venture fundraising soared to $17 billion in 2020, a 57% increase over 2019's record, according to Silicon Valley Bank. Investment in venture-backed companies also rose to a new high of $51 billion. Read more here.
***Commit now for discounted fees/carry:
Health Tech Rolling Fund Announcement
To access more exclusive and fast-moving health-tech deals, we are launching DVC’s Health Rolling Fund
DVC: Health’s Rolling Fund has a favorable fee/carry structure:
- Healthcare professionals always enjoy a 25% discount (1.5% mgmt fees, 15% carry).
- The first $1M to pre-commit and then fund at launch will get 10% off fees.
- Standard Fees / Carry: 2% / 20%
*** First $500k in pre-commits get discounted fees/carry https://form.typeform.com/to/cX5m5LVa
These days, a lot of people get access to incredible dealflow -- but many don't have a Syndicate to run the allocation. Sapien crowdsources allocations in incredible health & human potential companies from member LPs.