Early stage venture capital investor Lux Capital announced via blog post that it had raised a $400 million venture fund. Roughly 30 percent to 40 percent will in some way “touch the healthcare vertical”, said Adam Goulburn, a New York-based partner with the bicoastal firm, in response to emailed questions.
“Healthcare for us is very broad. We have invested in everything from surgical robotics to biopharma to med devices to digital pathology to healthcare IT. We continue to search and seek for new sectors.”
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Some examples of previous healthcare and life science investments include care coordinator via telehealth, Pager; Kallyope — a Lux founded and incubated biotech pioneering a new paradigm shift for the way neurological disorders are treated via the gut. Auris Surgical Robotics is its surgical robotics investment. Other companies it has backed include Zipdrug, 3Scan, Vium and Hometeam.
But what areas of life science and healthcare tech has Lux Ventures not yet, ah, ventured? Which areas excite the company’s curiosity? Goulburn answered this way.
We tend to let entrepreneurs guide us into new unknown territories but those that we’re chasing and seeking innovators, operators and founders include:
– Synthetic biology: the ability to read, edit and write DNA is unprecedented;
– Chronobiology and our body clocks; every one of our cells runs on a 24hr clock! Time is a parameter that has evaded our influence with respect to medicines;
– Cyborgs and bionics; not human or machine but human AND machine;
– Digital medicines or the [Internet of Things] for our bodies which we’ve termed ‘the bionet’, increasing the sophistication and intelligence of devices and parts we put in our bodies;
– And finally one that’s a little wild which is human-animal communication; known internally to the firm as ‘the interspecies internet’.
Human-animal communication! No doubt, this is a field that many dog owners feel they’ve cracked already. Disney film Up gave a nice stab at it. I know I’m intrigued as to the potential applications for healthcare and life sciences.
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Photo: Danil Melekhin, Getty Images
