Heal Capital launches first fund, hires Weiß as partner

Harriet Matthews
16 January 2020

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Healthcare-focused venture capital firm Heal Capital has announced that it has received €80m in commitments for its first-time fund, following a fundraising process that began in H2 2019.

The fund is targeting €100m and will focus on technology-backed companies in the life sciences and healthcare sectors.

Christian Weiß, who has previous experience at McKinsey and Creathor Ventures, will join the Berlin-based team as partner from February 2020.

The vehicle is understood to follow standard market terms and conditions. It is based in Germany.

Weiß told Unquote that the vehicle expects to hold a final close in the near future.

"It is unusual to have a firm dedicated to technology-enabled healthcare in the DACH region," Weiß told Unquote. "You do have large life sciences and healthcare funds in the DACH market, but they don't often focus on the intersection of medical-grade tech-enabled companies."

Investors
The fund is backed by a number of private German health insurers and aims to maintain independence by not being connected to any corporates in the healthcare and life sciences sectors. The vehicle was initiated by the Association of German Private Health Insurances (PKV) and is also backed by Heartbeat Labs and Flying Health, which will manage the fund alongside Heal Capital.

Investments
The vehicle will concentrate on series-A funding rounds, but will potentially invest at earlier stages on a case-by-case basis. It will deploy equity tickets of €3-5m and will invest up to €15m per company. The firm plans to hold back 50% of the fund for follow-on investments, Weiß told Unquote.

Asked about the fund's areas of particular interest in healthcare and technology, Weiß said: "What we are really looking at is leveraging technology for conditions such as diabetes and cancer, to provide an actual medical value-add – not just when it comes to wellbeing and consumer applications, but also for medical-grade diagnostics and digital therapeutics, OMEX analytics and the like."

People
Heal Capital – Christian Weiß (partner).