SoftTech VC, a seed-stage tech fund that has invested in digital health company Fitbit, has closed a $55 million fund and is looking for a handful of new consumer tech startups.
With priorities in mobile cloud and web commerce services, the firm plans to invest in 60 early stage tech companies over the next three years. It’s already made 23 deals since its third fund was announced last January.
But the SoftTech team is willing to step outside that box and venture into new territory, like it did with Fitbit, its first-ever hardware and digital health investment. Geographically, most of its portfolio companies are in Silicon Valley, New York and Boulder.
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.
To snatch up some of SoftTech’s hunk of change, companies should have “a smart ass team with a kick-ass product and a big ass market,” according to the firm’s “three asses rule.” It’s looking for sharp, imaginative entrepreneurs, a solid product with an advanced prototype or alpha version, and a market that is big enough to disrupt.
Companies can expect to earn an initial investment of about $400,000 from SoftTech, which also buys up in companies that scale well.
