| DEALFLOWUPDATE Issue #13. Friday, July 20 |
Hope the summer is treating everyone well… This issue of the Dealflow Update includes five deals exemplifying the non-invasive technologies we are most interested in, as well as successful funding and acquisition examples within the life sciences. Zoic Capital commits 1000+ hours per quarter towards our investment diligence – for those interested in our perspective when looking at deal flow, our specific criteria are: •Medical focus: Technology that has a primary medical application. We prefer those that will be directly used by patients or consumers. •Major innovation: The technology represents a 10x magnitudes of improvement over current standard of care, or has no equivalent. •Low regulatory requirements: Any technology except for those considered a pharmaceutical by the FDA. We prefer 510k approval pathways, or those with similar timeframes. •Strong and defensible intellectual property: We prefer unique hardware and IP coupled with unique software. •Platform applicability: Technology has the potential to be used as a platform for multiple medical, and possibly non-medical, applications. •Investing before an early inflection point: Company that is currently raising in the seed round, or before any regulatory approval but with some feasibility work done. •Sales success: A business model that is unique and has a high chance of significant (~$100M) revenue in less than 5 years. •Experienced leadership: A management team with previous success in medical device startups and exits. In other news, I also had the opportunity to speak with Gary Tyler alongside Chris Haydel in a new episode of the Market Meditations Podcast. Gary is the youngest person in U.S. history to be placed on death row and spent 41 years at Angola State Prison in Louisiana. A truly remarkable individual, Gary speaks about October 7, 1974 – the day that shaped his viewpoint on life and his experience at Angola. Listen in on iTunes, Google Play or Soundcloud and subscribe if you haven’t already. Thanks for reading and we’ll be back in two weeks… -Neal P.S. Our readership continues to grow! please subscribe if you’re new and continue to share with others on social media. Connect with us, we would love to hear from you! Spotlight  Podcast Special Guest Gary Tyler Gary Tyler is a former prisoner at the Louisiana State Prison in Angola, LA. He was freed after 41 years in jail after being tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder at age 17 by an all-white jury; he was the youngest person on death row. He had been convicted of the October 7, 1974 shooting death of a 13-year-old white boy and wounding of another, on a day of violent protests by whites against black students at Destrehan High School in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. Listen Now On iTunes, Google, Spotify or RSS Episode ArchiveShareTweetForward |
Dealflow Sofinnova Partners Sells ReCor Medical to Otsuka Holdings We have previously discussed companies using noninvasive treatments, such as ultrasound in new applications. Here is a company that not only demonstrates a promising use of that technology for treating hypertension, but also an example of another successful acquisition. This scenario, where a company gets acquired after obtaining regulatory approval, is our standard one. The technology here is a strong example of one that would meet our investment criteria. Read More  Ajax Health Closes $120M Series B Round At an earlier stage, and yet still an example of a technology platform that we would be interested in is another company with a noninvasive method of applying directed energy. This one specializes in electrophysiology, i.e. the diagnosis and treatment of conditions by using electrical fields. Read More  StratoScientific Raises $12M For Smartphone Stethoscope You might have seen many “smart” stethoscopes, either on the market or in development. For example, this recent case of Steth IO. For this particular device (and most of what we have seen), we do believe that this product could see some success; that is why they were able to raise what they did. However, for our metrics, we believe that, in order to be protectable against competition, the hardware needs to be unique and protected by IP. In this case, and most smart stethoscopes we have seen, the hardware is common and can be easily reproduced (if not already). The system that is able to have the most unique, and thus protected, way of gathering data (and not just processing the data) would be the one that meets our criteria. Read More  Neurotech Intl. Reports Positive Results in Autism Clinical Trial We have expressed many times before a strong interest in treatments for mental conditions, particularly treatments that are noninvasive. Although we have not invested in one yet, treatments that use devices instead of pharmaceuticals for treating autism such as the, Mente Autism Device, would be strong potential matches, especially if their hardware have unique and protectable IP, as described in the previous article. Read More  Cognitive Focused Neuronetrix Raises 2M Continuing with the theme of addressing mental conditions, another field we are quite interested in is better diagnosis of conditions. For example, this recent case of better diagnosing between dementia and depression. Such devices can not only lead to more accurate, and earlier diagnosis, but also better tracking and monitoring of treatments. Read More What We’re ReadingSTA The Opportunity is “Huge”: Why Tech Devs Are Tackling Mental Health SN Potential CRISPR Damage Has Been Severely Underestimated AXI Inside Google’s Venture Capital “Machine” PRP Predicting Health Care Costs: the Data Vacuum of Things Connect With Zoic Capital |
| The Biweekly Dealflow Update, curated by the team at Zoic Capital. |
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