Philadelphia-based venture capital firm Rittenhouse Ventures closed its second venture fund Rittenhouse II after raising $18 million, according to a news release. One notable development with the new fund is a tweaked investment strategy that added a few investments in early stage companies for the first time. It has also increased healthcare companies in its portfolio.
The investment firm has traditionally backed capital efficient, business to businesses software companies across healthcare and life sciences, among other areas, with more than $1 million in annual revenue seeking $1 million to $3 million in new capital. They also tend to be located in the Mid Atlantic region between Washington D.C. and Connecticut. One of the standouts from its first fund, medication risk management business Tabula Rasa, registered for an initial public offering earlier this year.
In an interview with Rittenhouse Ventures founder and managing partner Saul Richter earlier this year, he referred to these early stage companies as cubs. Through the firm’s work with Ben Franklin Technology Partners and Dreamit Ventures’ accelerator, Rittenhouse Ventures has gotten to know quite a few companies at the early stage, he observed.
So far, it has invested four “cubs”, two of them in healthcare. Another healthcare investment is still pending, Jayson Tischler, a principal with Rittenhouse confirmed.
One is Haystack Informatics, a Philadelphia business that seeks to help hospitals manage the security of electronic health records. Haystack also simplifies privacy breach investigations with visual tools to identify suspicious access.
Another is Philadelphia-based Life.io. It focuses on the health insurance industry and provides a way for insurers to better understand their members’ behavior. It also uses wearables and health applications to stimulate members’ interest in their health by tracking the impact of healthy behavior and rewarding healthy behavior.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Here are three more health tech investments from the firm’s second fund:
GSI Health develops care coordination and predictive analytics software to support population health.
Kynectiv is a training and simulation software developer that includes medical schools among its customers.
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