OurCrowd, an Jerusalem-based global equity crowdfunding platform for accredited investors has launched Israel’s first $50 million fund to invest in digital health startups. The new fund called OurCrowd Qure will focus on digital health startups at seed and series A stages in Israel, the US and the Asia Pacific region. Allen Kamer and Dr. Yossi Bahagon has been appointed to lead the fund.
OurCrowd Qure has established a collaboration with Johns Hopkins University to provide validation of value, fast track market access, on-going feedback and exposure of unmet needs. Together, the sector fund is dedicated exclusively to the rapidly developing digital health market valued globally at $70 billion US in 2015 and projected to be over $230 billion US by 2020.
“Digital health is one of the fastest growing sectors in terms of funding and M&A activity,” said OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved. “Exclusively focusing in digital health is important given the complexity of healthcare delivery and markets.”
The fund will be led by managing partners Allen Kamer and Dr. Yossi Bahagon. Kamer was co-founder of Humedica, a transformative population health and analytics company, which was acquired by UnitedHealth (NYSE UNH – the largest U.S. health insurer) in 2013. Most recently, Kamer served as the Chief Commercial Officer of Optum Analytics (a division in Optum, UnitedHealth Group’s health services company), a position he assumed following the acquisition. Previously, he was a director at the healthcare investment bank, Leerink Swann (now Leerink Partners), and held management positions at Biogen.
Bahagon, an active family physician, was Founder and CEO of Luminox Health, an Israeli healthcare startup specializing in digital medicine which was acquired by OurCrowd in June 2016. While at Luminox, Dr. Bahagon served as a strategic advisor to the world’s leading healthcare organizations, helping them seed and mature their digital health vision. Over the last four years, Dr. Bahagon has handpicked and seeded some of Israel’s most innovative and successful digital health companies that were backed by leading VCs and corporate funds, including Philips, Qualcomm Ventures, Orbimed, Walgreens, Fuson Pharma and Pitango.
“We are delighted that Allen and Yossi will be joining the team and bringing their extensive healthcare management and entrepreneurial experience to the Fund,” said Medved. “Sophisticated investors are seeking an array of avenues to deploy their capital. We believe offering a sector fund dedicated exclusively to investing in digital health companies that is connected to the OurCrowd platform offers a unique capability that is highly attractive.”
To date, the fund has already raised $10 million and has invested in one startup, with two more in the currently in the pipeline. The OurCrowd platform has almost 15,000 investors from over 110 countries and has invested over $300 million into 100 portfolio companies and funds.
