Startups, Health IT

Halle Tecco quits Rock Health, leaving venture fund’s future in question (updated)

The group hired a consultant this year to evaluate the organization's options, according to a source familiar with Rock Health.

By Stephanie Baum on May 04, 2016

This post has been updated from an earlier version.

Six years after she started Rock Health, Halle Tecco has left the building.
She conveyed the announcement via Twitter.

https://twitter.com/halletecco/status/727862390335913984

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Rock Health is a San Francisco-based group that nurtured five cohorts of health IT startups with seed funding and a network of mentors to advise the participants. Most of the classes were based in San Francisco, but the third cohort was in Boston. It later started producing market research reports and hosting events. It eventually dropped the incubator and added a venture fund to make seed stage and early stage investments in startups.

Update When Tecco stepped down as managing director late last year, that’s when Janet Widmann, a member of the board of directors, was named interim CEO. Tecco moved to New York City from the West Coast in early January where she had been on sabbatical and working as a consultant until her Tweet yesterday, according to new information from a source working closely with Rock Health.

Rock Health hired a consultant earlier this year to evaluate the organization’s options. Although Widmann continues to serve on the board, she stepped down from the interim CEO role two weeks ago, according to the source. An earlier version of this story said she was currently interim CEO.

Board members are sharing responsibility for various tasks at the venture fund and the chairwoman of Rock Health’s board of directors is Bridget Duffy, who is also the chief medical officer of Vocera Communications. They are evaluating candidates for a new interim CEO.

At the time this post went live Wednesday afternoon, Widmann’s LinkedIn page, described herself as operating adviser. As of early afternoon Thursday, her LinkedIn page had been updated to Rock Health board members. She has not responded to requests for comment.

Management shifts appear to have had an unsettling effect on the organization in the past year. In addition to Tecco’s departure, Malay Gandhi, who led Rock Health as its CEO and managing director, left the organization in November 2015. He currently advises health tech companies.

Rock Health made 93 investments in 80 companies, according to data from CrunchBase. Among them there were 10 acquisitions.